Artwork, 1957, May 14-23

Surfaces and Blocks of Pictorial Sensibility. Pictorial Intentions

"I thought, then, that the next step, following the Blue Period, would be the public presentation of this pictorial sensibility, this poetic energy, this impalpable, free matter in a non-concentrated, non-contracted state.
It would be a truly informal painting, such as it is and should be. Thus I presented, in my last double exhibition in Paris, at Iris CLERT and Colette ALLENDY in 1957, in one room on the first floor Iris CLERT’s Gallery a series of surfaces of pictorial sensibility, invisible, of course, to the naked eye and yet very much present."
Yves Klein, excerpt from « The Monochrome Adventure: the monochrome epic », 1960, Overcoming the problematics of Art -The writings of Yves Klein, Spring Publications, 2007

"Some privileged people, friends, art critics were invited to go to the first floor of the gallery Colette Allendy to discover the "Surfaces and blocks of pictorial sensitivity" presented in a seemingly empty room.
An article in the magazine Cimaises (July-August 1957) and a film attest the reality of this experiment.
The film, silent but in color, organizes a walk in a subjective camera in the exhibition, from the entrance of the gallery, the visit of the ground floor, until the arrival on the first floor.
There, the artist himself is waiting for us. He invites us by his gestures and his attitudes to look at invisible "pictorial Intentions" hanging on the wall, and to consider carefully "Blocks of pictorial sensitivity".
None of this can be seen, of course, but is there nothing? Reality is not just visible realities. Yves Klein believes that the essential quality of painting lies in the "pictorial sensitivity" that emanates from the painting. Everyone feels the presence without being able to say where it is and how it affects us. But it is this invisible essence of painting that he undertakes to present directly, without intermediary, without the support of the painting."
Denys Riout, excerpt from the text "Incandescent ashes", 2017, catalogue of the exhbition "Yves Klein - Retrospectiva", Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentine
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