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Lot Essay
"It is through pure color that Yves Klein materialized his sensory intuitions and activated a mechanism of extra-lucid perception, a totally affective psychosensory language that cannot be tested or verified by rational processes.
Like destiny, color is a reality in itself: it fixes the image of the color, by its direct action on people's sensibility, is the essential element in affective communication among them. Color shocks us or irritates us, charms or fascinates us, moves us to reverie or meditation. It is the sensory vehicle of the cosmic energies freely diffused in space and it conditions us - or to use Klein's terminology it 'impregnates' us. It impregnates us the way happiness and the sense of fate impregnates us.
The "monochrome propositions" - panels uniformly covered by a layer of color with a base of pure industrial paint - were never intended by their author to be decorative "pictures." Their function was entirely different: they were meant to gather the diffused energy that acts on our senses and to fix it, by means of color, in a certain space" (Pierre Restany in Yves Klein 1928-1962 A Retrospective, exh. cat., Houston 1982, pp. 14-15).
This is how Pierre Restany, art critic and friend of Yves Klein explains the monochromatic works which became the hallmark of Klein's work. Restany was instrumental in helping to form the intellectual backbone of the New Realist movement. This work which was given to Pierre Restany by the artist, and remained in his collection until his death, is significant, not only for its iconic nature within Klein's oeuvre, but also for its association with this extraordinary provenance and special link to this important movement in contemporary art.
Like destiny, color is a reality in itself: it fixes the image of the color, by its direct action on people's sensibility, is the essential element in affective communication among them. Color shocks us or irritates us, charms or fascinates us, moves us to reverie or meditation. It is the sensory vehicle of the cosmic energies freely diffused in space and it conditions us - or to use Klein's terminology it 'impregnates' us. It impregnates us the way happiness and the sense of fate impregnates us.
The "monochrome propositions" - panels uniformly covered by a layer of color with a base of pure industrial paint - were never intended by their author to be decorative "pictures." Their function was entirely different: they were meant to gather the diffused energy that acts on our senses and to fix it, by means of color, in a certain space" (Pierre Restany in Yves Klein 1928-1962 A Retrospective, exh. cat., Houston 1982, pp. 14-15).
This is how Pierre Restany, art critic and friend of Yves Klein explains the monochromatic works which became the hallmark of Klein's work. Restany was instrumental in helping to form the intellectual backbone of the New Realist movement. This work which was given to Pierre Restany by the artist, and remained in his collection until his death, is significant, not only for its iconic nature within Klein's oeuvre, but also for its association with this extraordinary provenance and special link to this important movement in contemporary art.