拍品專文
Executed in 1960, La Grande Bataille is the largest and most important of Klein's "Anthropometries" ever to come to auction. The work is also one of the few body paintings to which he gave a title.
It was on 5th June 1958, at his friend Robert Godet's apartment in Paris, that the artist created his first anthropometries, a generic name coined two years later by the art critic and champion of the Nouveau Realiste movement, Pierre Restany. Although better known for his monochrome works, it is perhaps in these more "naturalistic" body paintings that Klein achieves his stated quest to "leave [his] mark on the world." As Sidra Stich writes, "The anthropometries made history for Klein and became a benchmark of his career. They were an extreme example of his eccentric attitude towards art making and they diverged greatly from the kind of art being celebrated within the art world [at that time]". (Sidra Stich, Yves Klein, Germany 1994).
In the 3rd issue of the magazine Zero of 1961, Klein explains how the idea to distance himself totally, or at least physically, from the process of creation became a need and his only way forward: "When I was a child,... Hands and feet thick with colour, applied to the surface; suddenly, there I was, face to face with my own psyche. I had the proof of my five senses: I knew I could function. Then I lost my childhood... just as everyone else... And when I tried the same game as an adolescent, I quickly encountered Nothingness.
"I did not like Nothingness, and this is how I came to know the void, the deep void, those depths of blue! ...Having arrived at the monochrome adventure, I no longer needed to force myself to function; I functioned naturally.
"I was no longer myself. I, without the "I", became one with life itself. ...I monochromed my canvases with devotion. And out of this arose the all-powerful blue, to dominate now and for ever. Then I became uneasy, I brought models to the studio, not to work from, but simply to work in their company... For a long time, then, the presence of this flesh in the studio steadied me during the enlightenment brought on by the execution of my monochromes.
"As I continued to paint in monochrome, I reached the state of disembodiment almost automatically. This made me realise that I really was an Occidental, a proper Christian, believing with reason in the resurrection of the body and the resurrection of the flesh. An entire phenomenology took shape. But I was a phenomenology without ideas, or rather without any recognised conventions.
"... My studio was empty. Even the monochromes were gone. At this my models felt they had to help me. They rolled in the pigment and painted my monochromes with their bodies. They became my living brushes... Under my direction, the flesh itself applied the colour to the surface, and with perfect precision."
Although La Grande Bataille was created in the calm serenity of Klein's studio, it does relate closely to the Anthropometries executed in front of an invited audience on 9 March 1960 at the Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporain. On this notorious occasion, Klein appeared in tuxedo, and accompanied to the tune of his one cord "Monotone Symphony", he instructed three naked models to imprint their painted bodies against white sheets of paper attached to the wall or to drag one another on sheets laid down on the floor.
La Grande Bataille shares the scale and dynamic quality of these performance pieces. The overall impression of the composition is as though a judo match (Klein was a Judo expert) has been held in a blue mud bath, the vitality and sensuality of the action captured for posterity in the body imprints. Sidra Stich writes, "These paintings manifest the conception inherent in judo that the body is a centre of physical, sensorial and spiritual energy and that its power resides in the disciplined release of its energy to the outside. They also evoke the shadowy body image left by judokas on the dojo mat after they have fallen down. Klein had been sensitive to this kind of imagery from the very start of his involvement with judo, and now, just after he had stopped teaching and practicing, he made it the centrepiece of his art." (Stich, p.172).
It was on 5th June 1958, at his friend Robert Godet's apartment in Paris, that the artist created his first anthropometries, a generic name coined two years later by the art critic and champion of the Nouveau Realiste movement, Pierre Restany. Although better known for his monochrome works, it is perhaps in these more "naturalistic" body paintings that Klein achieves his stated quest to "leave [his] mark on the world." As Sidra Stich writes, "The anthropometries made history for Klein and became a benchmark of his career. They were an extreme example of his eccentric attitude towards art making and they diverged greatly from the kind of art being celebrated within the art world [at that time]". (Sidra Stich, Yves Klein, Germany 1994).
In the 3rd issue of the magazine Zero of 1961, Klein explains how the idea to distance himself totally, or at least physically, from the process of creation became a need and his only way forward: "When I was a child,... Hands and feet thick with colour, applied to the surface; suddenly, there I was, face to face with my own psyche. I had the proof of my five senses: I knew I could function. Then I lost my childhood... just as everyone else... And when I tried the same game as an adolescent, I quickly encountered Nothingness.
"I did not like Nothingness, and this is how I came to know the void, the deep void, those depths of blue! ...Having arrived at the monochrome adventure, I no longer needed to force myself to function; I functioned naturally.
"I was no longer myself. I, without the "I", became one with life itself. ...I monochromed my canvases with devotion. And out of this arose the all-powerful blue, to dominate now and for ever. Then I became uneasy, I brought models to the studio, not to work from, but simply to work in their company... For a long time, then, the presence of this flesh in the studio steadied me during the enlightenment brought on by the execution of my monochromes.
"As I continued to paint in monochrome, I reached the state of disembodiment almost automatically. This made me realise that I really was an Occidental, a proper Christian, believing with reason in the resurrection of the body and the resurrection of the flesh. An entire phenomenology took shape. But I was a phenomenology without ideas, or rather without any recognised conventions.
"... My studio was empty. Even the monochromes were gone. At this my models felt they had to help me. They rolled in the pigment and painted my monochromes with their bodies. They became my living brushes... Under my direction, the flesh itself applied the colour to the surface, and with perfect precision."
Although La Grande Bataille was created in the calm serenity of Klein's studio, it does relate closely to the Anthropometries executed in front of an invited audience on 9 March 1960 at the Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporain. On this notorious occasion, Klein appeared in tuxedo, and accompanied to the tune of his one cord "Monotone Symphony", he instructed three naked models to imprint their painted bodies against white sheets of paper attached to the wall or to drag one another on sheets laid down on the floor.
La Grande Bataille shares the scale and dynamic quality of these performance pieces. The overall impression of the composition is as though a judo match (Klein was a Judo expert) has been held in a blue mud bath, the vitality and sensuality of the action captured for posterity in the body imprints. Sidra Stich writes, "These paintings manifest the conception inherent in judo that the body is a centre of physical, sensorial and spiritual energy and that its power resides in the disciplined release of its energy to the outside. They also evoke the shadowy body image left by judokas on the dojo mat after they have fallen down. Klein had been sensitive to this kind of imagery from the very start of his involvement with judo, and now, just after he had stopped teaching and practicing, he made it the centrepiece of his art." (Stich, p.172).