IKB, International Klein Blue
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IKB, International Klein Blue
Yves Klein died when he was only 34 years old. He was an artist who stood out due to his varied works, which can be classified within what we call “conceptual art.” In conceptual art, the idea, the conceptual provocation, is more important than the work itself. A type of art that became popular around the 1960s.
In addition to being the founder of a movement called New Realism, Klein is the creator of a symphony to appreciate the experience of silence: the Monotone Silence Symphony. He is also the creator of the Anthropometry paintings, which were painted with “living brushes:” naked women covered in blue paint. And he was a pioneer of performances, which are stagings that combine different artistic disciplines. But his most transcendent work is the creation of a color, a shade of blue.
The artist called it International Klein Blue (IKB).
Klein Blue is a shade that is striking for its intensity. It is made from ultramarine blue (the exquisite blue of the 17th century Venetian painters), to which a binder called Rhodopas M is added, whose fundamental virtue is to maintain the energy, strength and vitality of the pigment.
Is it by chance that it was blue?
Blue is a color closely related to the spiritual. We are immediately reminded of Kandinsky’s theories. He and his companions of The Blue Rider, expressed themselves using colors in a symbolic way.
Blue is the depth of the soul.
Klein, before dedicating himself definitively to art, visited Japan, learned judo, and studied Zen Buddhism. He even wrote a book on the fundamentals of judo. And that training, enriched by philosophy and the oriental way of feeling, led him as an artist to search for sensitive experiences beyond the material, and beyond what had been understood as art for centuries.
Image: L’accord bleu (RE 10), 1960. Yves Klein. Canvas with sponges and pebbles attached to the surface.
Recommended links:
Ultramarine Blue in Venetian Painting.
Creative Processes: The Paranoid-Critical Method.
Creative Processes: Psychic automatism.
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