Exhibition Information Date:  October 23, 2010 - February 13, 2011 Place:  Galleries 4, 5, 6 View all associated images View this exhibition in the Walker Calendar
		Image: Yves Klein, Suaire de Mondo Cane (Mondo Cane Shroud) , 1961 Gift of Alexander Bing, T. B. Walker Foundation, Art Center Acquisition Fund, Professional Art Group I and II, Mrs. Helen Haseltine Plowden, Dr. Alfred Pasternak, Dr. Maclyn C. Wade, by exchange, with additional funds from T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2004

Half shaman, half showman, Yves Klein took the European art scene by storm in a brief career that lasted just eight years, from 1954 to 1962. Working in Paris during the apogee of geometric abstraction and Art Informel, in an intellectual scene dominated by existentialism, Klein carved out theoretical ground based on his embrace of Rosicrucianism, his interest in Gaston Bachelard’s philosophy of space, and the ethics of his career as a judo professional. A precursor of many movements of the postwar avant-garde, including minimal art, conceptual art, land art, and performance art, Klein aimed to reach “beyond the problematic in art” and rethink the world in spiritual and aesthetic terms—to reinstate the role of the artist as heroic, in the manner of Marcel Duchamp’s invention of the readymades decades earlier. Klein’s impressive body of work broke new ground and blended traditional artistic mediums, performance, and spiritual exploration. He inaugurated his defining series of monochromes in 1957, employing ultramarine blue of his own invention after trying various other hues, and in the final years of his career, his body paintings, or anthopometries, recorded the body’s physical energy using his patented pigment known as International Klein Blue or IKB. Through pure color he searched for immaterial spirituality.

The first large-scale exhibition of Klein’s influential work to tour the United States in nearly three decades is organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, in collaboration with the Yves Klein Archives in Paris. Exploring the artist’s work and its relationship with the environment, film, theater, air, and architecture, the exhibition of some 100 pieces features painting, sculpture, drawing, documents, photographs, and films. The exhibition comes to the Walker following its presentation at the Hirshhorn (May 20 - September 12, 2010).

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Curators: Philippe Vergne, Director, Dia Art Foundation, and Kerry Brougher, Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Yves Klein is co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Yves Klein is made possible with generous support from Martha and Bruce Atwater, Judy Dayton, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support provided by Constance R. Caplan. Major support for the Yves Klein catalogue is provided by Sotheby’s, with additional support from L & M Gallery.

The Walker Art Center’s presentation is sponsored by