My favorite artist we don't cover in AP Art History

Here is a nice summary of Yves Klein, his short but brilliant career, and his very own color.

Music review

(photo)

For only the second time ever (the first in 1960, conducted by Klein himself), Yves Klein's "Monotone-Silence Symphony" was performed last week in New York. It's exactly what the name describes: musicians playing a single note for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence. This performance didn't include nude women dipped in paint and literally thrust up on a canvas while the music was being played, but it seems the performance was a hit anyway. I wish I could have been there. Klein has been a favorite of mine for a long time.

A commercial for a painting

Christie's has a slick new video for an Yves Klein painting they'll be auctioning soon.

Is there even an Yves Klein work in your textbook? The man knew how to manage spectacle--he would have loved the internet age, I think. He had a proprietary--and beautiful--blue pigment named after himself, International Klein Blue, or IKB. His favorite tools for painting were naked women and fire. The painting for sale, above, is significant for using both. In one piece, Klein conducted an orchestra to play a single note for ten minutes while nude women covered themselves in IKB and made a new painting. Afterwards, the live audience--in formal wear for the art opening--stood in silence for ten minutes. In another piece, Klein sold patrons certificates proclaiming them the legal owners of pure, empty space. The only payment he would accept for pure space? Gold. But if you would then burn your certificate and therefore the art, he would throw (half) the gold payment into the river.

Warning: the video has a bit of nudity. It's nothing salacious, but it does make it clear that the artist is working with nude women.