Yves Klein
Yves Klein was born in Nice in 1929 and devoted himself to judo from boyhood. In 1954 in Paris, only seven years before his death, he decided to leave martial arts behind to concentrate on painting.
He developed a deeply conceptual research focused on expressing the immaterial; in particular, he sought the perfect expression of pure colour, going so far as to patent IKB (International Klein Blue) in 1956, the colour that became the thread
running through all his work.
Anthropométrie Tote Bag
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In his words: “My paintings are only the ashes of my art”.
The works shown here, “Anthropométrie de l’époque bleue”, were made by experimenting with the living-brush technique: a nude model, guided by the artist and with her body covered in IKB blue paint, leaves her imprint on a sheet of paper laid on the floor or hung on the wall.
With his work, the concept of the abstract artwork coined by the previous generation was surpassed, giving rise not only to paintings but also to daring performances and brilliant artistic actions.