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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Klein blue is the sky’s blue

Some days ago I was invited to an art talk, organised by students. Yves Klein was the topic. I admit that I’m not interested in him, but I understand that many of you might like him.
The talk was led by Javier Ortiz Echagüe, who is about to release a book about the topic with a different point of view, making it easier to understand Klein’s artworks.
Monochrome Sponge
Painting 1960
(Wikipedia)
Klein, when young, was judoka (he even got to be the Spain’s national team’s coach), but one day he decided to take up painting. His parents were artists too, so it wasn’t such an unexpected decision to take. Judo’s ideals (trying to go beyond your material and corporal limits) were Klein’s inspiration throughout his whole artwork. He started willing to imitate the blue of the sky from where he was born, Niza, on his canvas, that’s why his blue monochromatic blue paintings were first carried out. It’s from that sky that Klein’s passion for the color blue comes from. Later, he registered the so now called Klein blue, a vibrant blue with violet shades. (Color Index nº IKB 191).
He also tried to imitate the sea’s blue, which is when we first see sponges glued on his canvas. However, for Klein’s disappointment, canvas’ve got boundaries and he wanted to represent the infinity. This will get him to sell empty spaces, which he named as ‘Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility’, to organise exhibitions in which the gallery was simply empty, to levitate or to paint using fire.
He seeks for the Absolute, Heaven, the immaterial with material elements. Gradually he will find out that he is chasing an utopy, something actually impossible to accomplish.

Just like his family, he was devoted to Saint Rita of Cascia, the patron of the impossible. There is a testimony of this devotion, kept in the Saint’s Sanctuary since 1961, inside a little box divided in red, blue and gold, which are the colors that characterise his painting career. There was no acknowledgment of this until the restoration of the Convent due to the earthquake in 1979. The testimony was written in French.

Ex-voto to St. Rita of Cascia
Yves Klein, 1961
(yveskleinarchives.org)

Saint Rita of Cascia, I ask thee to intercede to God the almighty father so that he may always grant me in the name of the Son Jesus Christ and the name of the Holy Spirit and of the holy Virgin Mary the grace that they’d live in my works, which may become more beautiful and so that he may grant me also the grace of discovering always continually and regularly new more beautiful things in art every time, even though, unfortunately, I am not always worthy enough to be an instrument to build and create part of the Great Beauty, being everything that comes out of me beautiful.

Thank you very much, Javier!

I’d like to add a short remark:
It’s spoken about newest generations in Spain as the ‘Ni-Ni generation’ (The expression comes from ‘Ni estudian ni trabajan’ which means ‘They neither study nor work’ pretendy to show how youngsters are interessed by anything nowadays) I could check again during this art talk that there is a lot of youngsters that work, study and are interested in culture. I was quite impressed by how they were listening in complete silence and by the questions they asked.
I’ll always be grateful to them and to our hosts, who are always so cosy and warm-hearted.


cristinadelrosso.com // cristinadelrosso.artproject@gmail.com
Design and translation: Lorenzo Vigo







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