YVES KLEIN L' IKB, l'IKG, et l'immatériel vous souhaitent avec Yves Klein la santé pour toujours!
Dry pigment, gold leaf and ink on paper, triptych, with the third panel titled, annotated and signed by Klein in ink, and dated verso, 1960. 370x115 mm; 14 3/4x4 1/2 inches (overall). From a private New York collection, acquired directly from the artist in Paris in 1960.
Klein's (1928-1962) short and illustrious career helped lay the foundation for many major art movements of the latter half of the 20th century. Born in Nice to artistic parents, Klein had eccentric and varied interests from an early age, including judo (a type of Japanese martial art), Rosicrucianism, writings on space and drone music. Klein was already making his seminal monochrome paintings as early as 1947-50 (he held a private exhibition of them for friends in 1950), but began to pursue his artistic career in earnest when he settled in Paris in 1954.
He exhibited increasingly over the following years throughout Europe, culminating in 1961 with the retrospective exhibition "Yves Klein: Monochrome und Feuer" (Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, January 14-February 26, 1961). It featured a wide variety of works, including architecture drawings, an "immaterial" space, a Mur de Feu (wall of fire) and myriad examples of blue, pink and gold monochromes. The current lot, a triptych consisting of a hand painted blue square, a gold leaf applied square and an annotated square with the artist's hand writing in ink, acted as an early promotional vehicle for the now legendary Krefeld exhibition. Only one year later, Klein succumbed to a heart attack and died at the age of 34.
Klein's radical approach, which aimed to blend his life with his work, often combined elements of performance, sculpture, music, architecture, painting and other novel forms of expression. The particular shade of blue that he used (registered by the artist as "International Klein Blue" or "IKB" in 1960 with the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle, Paris) was meant to evoke the immaterial and boundless nature of the self and the world as understood by Klein via his interest in different schools of philosophical and spiritual thought. He was a performer and philosopher as much as a visual artist and his works are fully imbued with all of these elements. In March 1960, Klein patented a method by which he was able to distance himself from the physical creation of his paintings by remotely directing models covered in IKB pigment on to blank canvases and other surfaces so their "body prints," which the artist called Anthropométries were part of the artworks/performance pieces (See lots 92 and 93).
Klein's most groundbreaking show, "Le Vide," took place in Paris in 1958. Galerie Iris Clert was emptied and the walls painted stark white. The "artworks" in the gallery were for sale, and could only be purchased with pure gold. This idea became the performance piece known as Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle, 1959-62, an exchange of gold for empty space that culminated in the artist throwing away half of his acquired gold leaf in a river and repurposing the remaining in future works. Gold and pink were the other principle colors that Klein used significantly in his oeuvre. He particularly treasured gold for its supremely delicate nature, its vibrancy and its ancient and varied cultural associations.
Another dry pigment (IKB), gold leaf and ink on paper triptych, Au nom de bleu, de l'or, de l'immatérial, 1960, was shown in the recent major retrospective, "Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers," Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D. C., and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, May 20, 2010-February 13, 2011, catalogue illustration page 216.
