"Within the same span of time, I have succeeded in painting with fire, using very powerful and searing gas flames, some ten to twelve feet in height, to lick the surface of a painting in order to record the spontaneous trace of fire. (...)
In sum, my goal is twofold: first of all, to register the trace of human sentimentality in present-day civilization; secondly, to register the trace of fire which has engendered this very same civilization. And this because the void has always been my constant preoccupation; and I hold that in the heart of the void as well as in the heart of man, fires are burning."
Yves Klein, excerpt from « Chelsea Hotel Manifesto», 1961


"Fire for me is the future without forgetting the past. It is the memory of nature."
Yves Klein, excerpt from « Lecture at The Sorbonne », 1959