Artwork, 1957

Aerostatic sculpture

The monochrome man who is also champion of judo, black belt 4th dan, practices regularly dynamic levitation! (with or without a net, at the risk of his life).

He claims to be able to join up with his preferred work in space soon: an aerostatic sculpture, composed of one thousand and one blue balloons, which will take off from his exhibition in 1957 into the sky of Saint-Germain-des-Prés never again to return!

To liberate sculpture from its pedestal has long been his concern. Today the painter of space must, in fact, go into space to paint, but he must go there without trickery or deception, and not in an airplane, nor by parachute or in a rocket: he must go there on his own strength, using an autonomous individual force; in short, he must be capable of levitation.

Yves Klein, excerpt from Sunday, November 27th, 1960, The Newspaper of a Single Day, 1960


On the evening of the opening of the double exhibition of the "Blue Era", Yves Klein and Iris Clert leave the gallery with bunches of blue balloons inflated with helium and, in front of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church, drop them in the sky.

Technical Photography