Lot Essay
Created for a retrospective exhibition of Klein's work held at the Haus Lange Museum in Krefeld in 1961, F3 explores the concept of capturing a fleeting, ephemeral moment and suspending its imprint for eternity. This idea, central to Klein's creativity, was first explored in his Anthropometries and Cosmogonies series. It was, as Ulf Linde writes, an act of establishing "the presence of absence".
The execution of Klein's fire pictures was performance art in itself. Klein, with the aid of an attendant in a fireman's uniform, would hold a flame gun to a piece of treated card just long enough to scorch the surface and leave a smoky residue. His manipulation of the properties of fire was as eloquent as his direction of the nude "model-brushes" of his Anthropometries, and the results just as beautiful.
"Fire and heat," Klein explained, "are explanatory in a great variety of contexts, because they contain enduring memories of personal and decisive events we have all experienced. Fire is both intimate and universal. It resides in our hearts; it resides in a candle. It rises up from the depths of matter, and it conceals itself, latent, contained, like hate or patience. Of all phenomena, [fire] is the only one that so obviously embodies two opposite values: good and evil. It shines in paradise, and burns in hell. It is gentleness and torture. It can contradict itself, and therefore it is one of the universal principles." (Hannah Weitemeier, Yves Klein, Cologne 1995, p. 70).
Dichotomy is central to the understanding of F3. Opposing values of good and evil, hope (the eternal flame) and destruction, life and death have all been identified by art historians as being present in the work. Sidra Stich argues that "the mode of life that is manifest (shadows and ashes) is a reality that defies physicality. Once again, Klein sets out the context of the void: a void that is neither a beginning nor an end, a void marked by primal, eruptive, apocalyptic, and eternal forces of a life-giving and life-consuming energy. As he stated, "The void has always been my main preoccupation, and I firmly believe that the fires burn in the heart of the void as in the heart of man." (Sidra Stich, Yves Klein, Stuttgart, 1994, p. 227).
In F3, the haunting beauty of the trace marks left by the flames clearly records the presence of a disappearing life-force. The fixing and subsequent display of the vestiges of the flames can be seen as an act of not only appropriating and utilizing a hiterto unexplored medium (painting with fire), but also in making the execution of the work into a living and dramatic spectacle. "The lighting of the flame during the vernissage," recalled Restany, "had the moving character of a mystical event. Looking at the utterly transformed and estatic Yves Klein, and Rotraut [Klein's wife] imperturbable in her Egyptian coiffure, we all had the impression of taking part in the celebration of an unknown rite that nevertheless concerned us all". (Hannah Weitemeier, Yves Klein, Cologne 1995, p. 71).
The execution of Klein's fire pictures was performance art in itself. Klein, with the aid of an attendant in a fireman's uniform, would hold a flame gun to a piece of treated card just long enough to scorch the surface and leave a smoky residue. His manipulation of the properties of fire was as eloquent as his direction of the nude "model-brushes" of his Anthropometries, and the results just as beautiful.
"Fire and heat," Klein explained, "are explanatory in a great variety of contexts, because they contain enduring memories of personal and decisive events we have all experienced. Fire is both intimate and universal. It resides in our hearts; it resides in a candle. It rises up from the depths of matter, and it conceals itself, latent, contained, like hate or patience. Of all phenomena, [fire] is the only one that so obviously embodies two opposite values: good and evil. It shines in paradise, and burns in hell. It is gentleness and torture. It can contradict itself, and therefore it is one of the universal principles." (Hannah Weitemeier, Yves Klein, Cologne 1995, p. 70).
Dichotomy is central to the understanding of F3. Opposing values of good and evil, hope (the eternal flame) and destruction, life and death have all been identified by art historians as being present in the work. Sidra Stich argues that "the mode of life that is manifest (shadows and ashes) is a reality that defies physicality. Once again, Klein sets out the context of the void: a void that is neither a beginning nor an end, a void marked by primal, eruptive, apocalyptic, and eternal forces of a life-giving and life-consuming energy. As he stated, "The void has always been my main preoccupation, and I firmly believe that the fires burn in the heart of the void as in the heart of man." (Sidra Stich, Yves Klein, Stuttgart, 1994, p. 227).
In F3, the haunting beauty of the trace marks left by the flames clearly records the presence of a disappearing life-force. The fixing and subsequent display of the vestiges of the flames can be seen as an act of not only appropriating and utilizing a hiterto unexplored medium (painting with fire), but also in making the execution of the work into a living and dramatic spectacle. "The lighting of the flame during the vernissage," recalled Restany, "had the moving character of a mystical event. Looking at the utterly transformed and estatic Yves Klein, and Rotraut [Klein's wife] imperturbable in her Egyptian coiffure, we all had the impression of taking part in the celebration of an unknown rite that nevertheless concerned us all". (Hannah Weitemeier, Yves Klein, Cologne 1995, p. 71).