• From judo to pictorial sensitivity, by Denys Riout

Article, 2017

From judo to pictorial sensitivity, by Denys Riout

Denys Riout

Yves Klein, born in 1928, grew up in an artistic environment. His father, Fred Klein, a figurative painter, and his mother, Marie Raymond, soon to be known as an abstract painter, frequented many avant-garde figures. The young man, faced with the challenge of becoming a painter without having to choose between his mother's side and his father's tradition, hesitated between several other paths. In 1947, after having given up on a career in the merchant navy, he worked in a shop in Nice where his aunt Rose, a loyal supporter, welcomed him. He then joined a judo club and soon developed a passion for this martial art, which requires both physical and mental discipline (ill. 2). There he met Claude Pascal and then Armand Fernandez - later known as Arman. Inseparable, the three friends learnt judo, had fun, talked, and dreamt of conquering the world and changing life. This is how they discovered Max Heindel's book, La Cosmologie des Rose+Croix. Soon, Claude Pascal and Yves Klein became passionate and joined the Rosicrucian Society of Oceanside (California). This episode gave rise to many misunderstandings about the supposed "spirituality" or "occultism" of the artist, who had nevertheless renounced this teaching in 1953.

Called up by the army in November 1948, Klein did his military service in Germany. At the end of 1949, he left with Claude Pascal for London where he found a job with a framer who introduced him to gilding. Then the two friends went to Ireland and worked in a riding club. In February 1951 Klein moved to Madrid to learn Spanish. He continued to practice judo, of course, here in a club run by Franco de Sarabia, with whom he became friendly. In Spain, Klein began to prepare for a stay in Japan, where he could attend classes at a famous institute, and then return to France and begin a career as a judoka. His path was now clear. He was 24 years old when he left for Yokohama, where he arrived in September 1952. He then went to Tokyo and enrolled at the Kôdôkan, the most renowned judo training centre in the country. Klein had to start from scratch, going through all the ranks one by one. In July 1953, he regained his initial rank, 2nd dan black belt, but to outdo his compatriots, he could not be satisfied with that. At the beginning of the following year, when he had obtained the 4th dan, he returned to France and presented himself to the Judo Federation to validate his Japanese titles, confident in his future. Unfortunately, the interview went badly and Klein, humiliated, saw his hopes collapse. Even the official teaching of judo is forbidden to him in France.

Solicited by the Spanish Judo Federation, Klein returned to Madrid as a technical advisor and also taught at Franco de Sarabia's club, whose father, a printer, allowed him to concoct Yves paintings on his presses. In November 1954, the disappointed judoka published an important book with many illustrations, Les Fondements du judo (ill. 3). When he returned to Paris at the end of 1954, he agreed to give classes at the American Center. The following year he opened a judo hall on Boulevard Clichy, thanks to the financial help of his aunt. His teaching at the American Center ensured him a modest but regular income until 1958, all the more useful as his own hall had to close permanently at the beginning of the summer of 1956. The young judoka had already turned to painting.

Klein, author of the confidential album Yves Peintures, decided to move from fiction to reality and to make it known. Not only did he paint real monochrome panels, but he wanted to exhibit one of them at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, a Salon created in 1946 and devoted to abstract art. His mother was an influential member of the Salon. However, the organising committee refused Expression de l'univers de la couleur mine orange in July 1955, on the pretext that an all-orange painting was "really not enough". [i] Klein could protest that he was acting in good faith, that his intentions were "absolutely serious and sincere" [ii], but nothing could be done. Since Manet, we know that a refusal at a Salon can lead to triumph later on. Klein, like an experienced judoka, was to turn the situation to his advantage. With the monochrome he thought he was getting closer to the "real" without giving in to the realism of figuration. However, the Salon committee refused to see him as an abstract painter. In 1955, in fact, monochrome painting was rejected by the two opposing camps, figuration and abstraction. Assumed as such, it opened up new perspectives, despite some precedents of different inspiration. Klein argued his choice in the "struggle between line and colour". iii] He took sides with his paintings and tried to win the public over to his cause through exhibitions.

After his failure at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Klein organised his first solo exhibition at the Club des Solitaires, the private salons of Éditions Lacoste (October 1955). He presented a series of "plain monochrome paintings"[iv] and explained this radical choice in the text presenting this exhibition, entitled Yves Peintures, like the album produced the previous year. This is the first time that the term 'monochrome' has been used in the artistic context in this sense. In the past, it was used to refer to cameos or 'grisailles'. The reduction to a single colour did not eliminate the drawing, and since antiquity it has been used for trompe-l'oeil effects. Before Klein, several artists had painted paintings in a single colour, monochromes before the term was coined. Malevich's Black Square (ill. 4), also called Black Square on a White Background, is still open to discussion in this respect. On the other hand, the three paintings presented by Rodchenko in Moscow in 1921, yellow, blue and red respectively, were truly "monochromes", although the term was not used. The same is true of the White and Black Paintings exhibited in New York in 1953 by Rauschenberg. This is why, although he was not the first to paint such pictures, it seems legitimate to consider Klein the inventor of the "genre".

His friends attend the opening, but no critics, no gallery owners, no collectors show up. A mocking rumour spreads around this exhibition of paintings in various solid colours, all without drawings. It prompted a young art critic, Pierre Restany, to visit it. Interested, he met Klein and quickly became one of his close friends. An exemplary collaboration then began. Colette Allendy exhibited avant-garde artists in her Paris gallery. Restany convinced her to present Klein's works and wrote "La minute de vérité" (ill. 5) for the invitation to the exhibition, which he suggested should be entitled Yves. Propositions monochromes. This locution emphasises 'monochromy' and does not use the term 'tableau', or 'painting'. The singularity of Klein's works has now found an equivalent in the language that qualifies them. This discursive coup de force was decisive for the perception of his work. The artist immediately grasped the advantages. From then on he signed many of his works and interventions "Yves le Monochrome". The "monochrome adventure" that began at that time still shines brightly today.

The exhibition in the Colette Allendy gallery, which opened in February 1956, raised questions. A debate with the public was therefore organised. The discussions allowed the artist to understand why his intentions were misunderstood. Instead of concentrating their attention on each monochrome in turn, the amateurs considered the whole, the juxtaposition on the same wall, at different heights, of panels of varying colours. The autonomy of the "proposals" escapes them and they become simple elements of a "decorative polychromy"[vi]. vi] The artist's response to the problem is elegantly based on an implacable logic: he must eliminate colour diversity. Klein chose to stick to ultramarine blue for his next exhibition.

This path might seem all cerebral. But monochrome painting is by no means conceptual and Klein has always shown a keen plastic sensitivity. Pure pigment, as it is presented in colour shops, fascinates him by its luminous intensity and the depth of its matte. However, the traditional binders used to fix the pigments on the support, such as linseed oil, always alter their brilliance. Together with his colour merchant, Édouard Adam, he developed a "fixing medium" that allowed the pigments to retain a remarkable luminosity. Klein used this preparation to paint his monochromes, especially blues. In 1960, he registered the formula with the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (ill. 6). This I.K.B. (International Klein Blue), the subject of a mythical "patent", became the emblematic colour of his art.

Pierre Restany had many contacts in Italy. He persuaded a Milanese gallery owner, Guido Le Noci, to organise an event devoted to blue, the title of which he suggested: Proposte monocrome, epoca blu. This first exhibition of the "blue era" opened at the Galerie Apollinaire on 2 January 1957. Eleven paintings were presented in an unusual way. Detached from the picture rail, rigorously parallel to the walls, they appear to be similar in every way. With the same format, the same texture, and above all entirely covered, including the edges, with the same blue, these "Monochrome Proposals" seem to go right up to the viewer. The absence of a frame and the slightly rounded corners of the supports, so that sharp edges do not hinder the diffusion of the colour in space, contribute to their power of "radiation", a quality that Klein sought above all others. The demonstration did not go unnoticed. By a happy coincidence, it was Dino Buzzati who was asked to review it for the Corriere d'informazione. His article, "Blu, Blu, Blu" and the purchase of a monochrome by Lucio Fontana helped to forge an international stature for the painter, who had previously been almost unknown.

After this masterstroke, Klein had a series of solo exhibitions. In May 1956, a two-part exhibition opened in Paris. This time, Pierre Restany wrote the text of the invitation card stamped with a plain ultramarine blue stamp, which the postal services agreed to cancel (ill. 7). Shortly before the opening of the exhibition at Iris Clert's, Klein, his gallery owner and their friends went to the nearby church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés with bunches of blue helium balloons. When they were released, they flew up into the sky (ill. 8). Later Klein would claim that there were a thousand and one balloons, and he would turn this event into a work of its own, his Aerostatic Sculpture. For the opening of the second part of the exhibition, he provided another surprise. In Colette Allendy's garden, he set off Bengal lights on a blue monochrome placed on an easel. This ephemeral show is intended to "grow in memory, in visual memory". vii] A colour film bears witness to this exceptional moment and reports on the two hangings.

Shortly after the end of the Paris exhibitions, a new event opened. Organised in Düsseldorf, it inaugurated Alfred Schmela's gallery. In this modestly sized space, Klein presented monochromes of various colours. Then, in London, the One gallery hosted a set of blue "proposals" and a selection of white, black, green, red, yellow and pink "proposals". The blue period struck a chord. Klein did not dwell on it, let alone confine himself to it. It was much more important for him to show how rich in potential monochromy was. Where it had been seen as a facetiousness, a passing experiment or the final stage before the death of painting, Yves le Monochrome proves that it can, on the contrary, manifest the vitality of art.

Denys Riout, extract from "Des cendres incandescentes", 2017



[i] Yves Klein, "L'aventure monochrome", Écrits, op. cit, p. 226.
[ii] Yves Klein, letter to the committee of the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 5 July 1955, Écrits, op. cit. p. 330.
[iii] Yves Klein, "Ma position dans le combat entre la ligne et la couleur", 1958, Écrits, op. cit. p. 49.
[iv] Yves Klein, "Texte de présentation de l'exposition Yves Peintures aux Éditions Lacoste" 15 October 1955, Écrits, op. cit. p. 40.
[v] The first thematic exhibition devoted to monochrome painting, Monochrome Malerei, was organised at the Städtisches Museum in Leverkusen in 1960. Klein's work, already well known in Germany in informed circles, was the trigger. Since then, many other explorations of the genre have taken place, including a major exhibition, Colour Alone. The Monochrome Experience, Lyon, France, 1988.
[vi] Yves Klein, Le Dépassement de la problématique de l'art (1959), Écrits, op. cit, p. 82.
[vii] Yves Klein, "Remarques sur quelques œuvres exposées chez Colette Allendy", Paris, May 1957, Écrits, op. cit. p. 53.