AS: Yves Klein Salute!
I hereby launch a monthly tradition! Art Slob wishes to salute an artist who has done a bang up job and is generally really groovy. Few artists are this groovy....
Yves Klein was a French conceptual artist (I guess) who did a lot of interesting things. Things like jump into midair for a photo (taken by a trusted friend, surely) entitled 'Leap into the Void'. While Yves prided himself on his judo blackbelt status, he, nevertheless, broke a bone or two as a result of this particular leap. That's commitment, kids.
One of the many things Klein was art-world-famous for was his decision to identify himself almost exclusively to one shade of blue.
Anytime you saw that Yves Klein blue colour as a monochrome painting (or applied to objects like a rhino head), you were to think, "Yves Klein!"
The man was a self-marketing genius. Klein was also an artist of grand gestures.
Here we see Klein as the master impressario. He gives verbal orders to his nude models on how to apply his blue paint to their bodies and how to press those bodies against the white surface shown at the left side of the photo. Events degenerated into a knock 'n drag around, fortunately. Just look at this photo below for a few hours (over the next week or so) as I have. Note the levels of categorical juxtaposition in form and theme. If this is a dream, don't wake Bobo up! Fine work, Yves. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
The evening, entitled 'Monochrome Symphony Performance' was set in a Paris art gallery and attended by the who's who of French society. The symphony played a single note throughout (or was it silent?).
Klein was a man of style first and foremost. Note (photo below) the fine tailoring of the artist's vest and trousers whilst sporting the latest in post WWII flame-thrower technology.
My favourite Klein performance (title unknown - AS) was when the artist met a very sophisticated German collector at the top of a stone bridge. As per the agreement, the collector presented Klein with a box containing gold coins with the 1960s value of $10,000 (US). Klein tossed half of the coins into the river below and walked away with the rest. What did the German collector get for his money? A great moment in art history.
Yves Klein was a French conceptual artist (I guess) who did a lot of interesting things. Things like jump into midair for a photo (taken by a trusted friend, surely) entitled 'Leap into the Void'. While Yves prided himself on his judo blackbelt status, he, nevertheless, broke a bone or two as a result of this particular leap. That's commitment, kids.One of the many things Klein was art-world-famous for was his decision to identify himself almost exclusively to one shade of blue.
Anytime you saw that Yves Klein blue colour as a monochrome painting (or applied to objects like a rhino head), you were to think, "Yves Klein!"
The man was a self-marketing genius. Klein was also an artist of grand gestures.
Here we see Klein as the master impressario. He gives verbal orders to his nude models on how to apply his blue paint to their bodies and how to press those bodies against the white surface shown at the left side of the photo. Events degenerated into a knock 'n drag around, fortunately. Just look at this photo below for a few hours (over the next week or so) as I have. Note the levels of categorical juxtaposition in form and theme. If this is a dream, don't wake Bobo up! Fine work, Yves. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
The evening, entitled 'Monochrome Symphony Performance' was set in a Paris art gallery and attended by the who's who of French society. The symphony played a single note throughout (or was it silent?).Klein was a man of style first and foremost. Note (photo below) the fine tailoring of the artist's vest and trousers whilst sporting the latest in post WWII flame-thrower technology.
My favourite Klein performance (title unknown - AS) was when the artist met a very sophisticated German collector at the top of a stone bridge. As per the agreement, the collector presented Klein with a box containing gold coins with the 1960s value of $10,000 (US). Klein tossed half of the coins into the river below and walked away with the rest. What did the German collector get for his money? A great moment in art history.
posted by Bill Pocock at 2:14:00 p.m.
7 Comments:
I think you've officially mastered the blog artform.
I'm struggling with formatting multiple images in one post with commentary. I like images to the right, but may have to settle for a centred image with text below, alas.
Thanks for the masterly compliment, m'man.
I just signed up for audioblogger and will give it a try. Suspect I wouldn't use it much. Though I think it may be neat to do a gallery reception interview with an artist, using my cellphone as a microphone and posting it on Art Slob. We shall see.
Question: Is a '415' phone number long-distance from Toronto?
I've never even heard of 415...
I know what you mean about the images. I find they don't show up the way they even look in the "preview".
I was wondering today about trying a normal web site (just a few pages and simple links). I'm starting to figure out what the blog is and is not good for. I've noticed a lot of people have both web sites and blogs - makes sense.
Rob
Think I'm gonna pass on the '415'.
I agree with the pro/con of blog. Part of my attempt to not lose track of old posts is to title them and give series names for better blog searching. Aside from that it's a daily amusement that should cut too much into my time as I get better at it - I hope. I'm thinking of packaging it as a sort of monthly on-line magazine. I want to have a title page (done up in Photoshop) as the first post of a new month. It'll an 'ART SLOB' masthead and teasers of what's to come in the up-coming month for anticipation (for those 3 1/2 people who read it). The monthly artist salute will be one feature. That and 'Ask Art Slob' - if anyone every actually asks me a question, that is.
My gallerycrawl.ca site should be going in about a week as I've transferred my huge amount of gallery reception photos and HTML pages to the tech.coop server they've set aside for me.
Check out tech.coop as a simple site will cost you about $5/month. It's a co-op like Mountain Equipment Co-op, only for the web world. Oh, and Drew's a great guy.
Tell 'im Bill sent ya.
"Leap into the Void": Beautiful. Thanks for posting that for me to find.
Yes, but what did you think about the naked women?
I was told by an art history teacher that the 'leap into the void' is actually an expertly executed fake. still a great piece though..
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