Klein exhibition in Aix

Until March 26, the Hôtel de Caumont-art center in Aix-en-Provence is presenting an exhibition dedicated to “Intimate Yves Klein”. The opportunity to dive into the work of the IKB painter.

In the 18th century setting of the Hôtel de Caumont, Aix en Provence, unfolds from October 28, 2022 to March 26, 2023 an exhibition event dedicated to “Yves Klein intimate”. This coherent, sensitive and very didactic route, like the two curators Cecilia Braschi, responsible for the exhibitions of theCaumont hotel-art centerand Denys Riout, professor of art history at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, unfolds the work of the judoka painter of monochromes, inventor of the International Klein Blue (IKB).


The IKB painter

It is with his merchant of colors, Edouard Adam, whom Yves Klein chose in 1960 a synthetic ultramarine blue (IKB) and developed a “fixative medium”, to compete with the oil colors which the artist considered to be “dead” as soon as they were mixed with glue or another medium. The pure powdered pigments are thus deposited in carpets on the floor, or fixed on canvases which keep their brilliance and make the color radiate. “It was the color itself really. Matter colors alive and tangible », says the artist. Blue invades the space to reach the viewer.

From left to right: Monochrome bleu (IKB 68) (1961), Monochrome bleu sans titre (Godet) (1958) and Fa (Re 31) (1960) by Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hotel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer).

Pink, blue and gold

Presented in 1957 in the Colette Allendy and Iris Clert galleries, the sponges impregnated with pink, blue and gold are stuck on pikes and mounted on poorly squared stones. They take up the three favorite colors of the artist: the blue for the sky, pink for the flesh and gold for the passage to the absolute. If, at the beginning, the sponges are only the vehicle to deposit the pure pigments, they gradually become the perfect support to illustrate this notion of “impregnation” that Yves Klein seeks.

Showcase of sponge sculptures (circa 1960) in front of the portrait of Yves Klein in his apartment (1959), presented in the exhibition

Showcase of sponge sculptures (circa 1960) in front of the portrait of Yves Klein in his apartment (1959), presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer).

“Brushwomen” according to Restany

Thanks to a film shot at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Paris in 1960, the public can relive the Anthropometry of the blue era. Dressed in official costume and white gloves, Yves Klein invites the naked models to smear themselves in blue and rub themselves against blank canvases by following the pre-established movements known only to him. Here, for example, we see on the right two preliminary drawings indicating the masses of colors and the gestures that the human brushes (most often womenapart from the artists Arman and Martial Raysse) must accomplish.

From left to right: Shroud Anthropometry (ANT SU 3) (1960), Untitled Anthropometry (ANT1) (1961), Preliminary Drawing for the Great Battles (D2) (1960) and Preliminary Drawing for the Anthropometry (D1) (1960) of Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition

From left to right: Shroud Anthropometry (ANT SU 3) (1960), Untitled Anthropometry (ANT1) (1961), Preliminary Drawing for the Great Battles (D2) (1960) and Preliminary Drawing for the Anthropometry (D1) (1960) of Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer).

Exquisite Corpse

Taking the form loved by the surrealists, this long sheet, 14 meters long, resembles an exquisite corpse combining the work of Yves Klein, Arman, Claude Pascal and the critic Pierre Restany, the “inventor” of the New Realists group. . Each successively painted a piece of the work without knowing the previous part. A direct allusion to the Holy Shroud of Christ preserved in Turin, this Store poem displays spare silhouettes by Yves Klein, drawn using paint projected around the bodies of the models. Kinds of exquisite corpses?

Store poem (ANT SU 15) (1962) by Yves Klein, Arman, Claude Pascal and Pierre Restany, presented in the exhibition

Store poem (ANT SU 15) (1962) by Yves Klein, Arman, Claude Pascal and Pierre Restany, presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer) .

For Saint Rita

In front of three monochromes of the favorite colors of Yves Klein, sits an ex-voto dedicated to Saint Rita to whom the Nice artist devoted all his life a passionate cult. “Give me your help again and again in my art and always protect everything I have created so that despite myself it will always be the great beauty », he wrote to her. He also offers the saint a few small gold ingots that he did not throw into the Seine in 1962 following one of his Works in Three Dimensionsconsisting of the sale of “zones of immaterial pictorial sensitivities” validated by a receipt. This indicates that the weight of gold, corresponding to the object of the sale, must be thrown into the water.

Ex-voto dedicated to Saint Rita of Cascia (1961), Pink Monochrome (circa 1962), Blue Monochrome (1959) and Monogold (1962) by Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition

Ex-voto dedicated to Saint Rita of Cascia (1961), Pink Monochrome (circa 1962), Blue Monochrome (1959) and Monogold (1962) by Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer).

of the immaterial

Affiliated to the Rose + Croix society at a very young age, then a member of the order of the Archers of Saint Sebastian, Yves Klein has always been immersed in a world of religiosity. Completing a very well thought-out itinerary, the exhibition presents a set of gold monochrome works and this relief portrait of his friend judoka and artist Claude Pascal on a golden background. A perfect image of the “spiritual realism” of Yves Klein, between hyperrealism (with the wrinkles and the muscles of the naked model) and the spirituality of gold, vector between the earth and the immaterial.

Portrait-relief of Claude Pascal (1962) by Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition

Portrait-relief of Claude Pascal (1962) by Yves Klein, presented in the exhibition “Yves Klein intimate”, Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, 2022 (© Guy Boyer).

“Intimate Yves Klein”
Hôtel de Caumont-art center
3, rue Joseph Cabassol, Aix-en-Provence
Until March 26, 2023

Klein exhibition in Aix-en-Provence: in the intimacy of the artist at the Hôtel de Caumont | Knowledge of the Arts