el laberinto

Claude Parent, “On Yves Klein,” c. 1970 (via nytimes)

Wedding Invitation for Yves Klein and Rotraut, 1962

Portrait of Yves Klein, Krefeld, Germany, 1961 (via archives)

Portrait of Yves Klein and Rotraut, Paris / Malibu, 1961 (via archives)

Yves Klein, Fire Wall and Fire Fountain at the Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany, 1961

International Klein Blue (IKB) by French artist Yves Klein (1928-62)

The first color I wish to explore is one of my favorites, due to both its historical / artistic conception and its hue. Klein and a series of chemists first created the color IKB in 1958, similar in many ways to Ultramarine ("beyond the sea"), as a unique artistic conception. Klein sought a blue that would appear as the same color in terms of intensity both when wet and dry achieved by suspending dry pigment in a clear synthetic resin, which he patented as such. However, their creation exists outside the gamut of regular computer displays, and so the photos are not as accurate as Klein would have desired, although this aspect enhances their appeal when seeing them in a gallery. In the 1950s and 1960s he experimented with both performance art and photomontage as well as monochrome, resulting in the creation of IKB. He died in 1962 of a heart attack. His legacy may very well live on as part of my art school.

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