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Hi there,

Welcome to this unorganised collection of my writings, thoughts, creative notes and ramblings. It may not be coherent and at times may be a little hard to follow. Such is the nature of language and I'm not writing for anyone else, just myself, in an attempt to organise my thoughts and to aid me with my creative work but please feel free to peruse and comment if you wish to do so.

XO,

Emma-Jane

Sunday 5 July 2009

"Long Live the Immaterial!"

I taketh a break and something amazing doth happen! Went to see a friend after work, as opposed to coming straight home to get my art on, as it were, and she had recently stumbled across the French artist, Yves Klein. This man was a genius! I'm so pleased to discover a new artist! Best feeling ever, akin to discovering a new band! Sadly he died at the age of 34.

His work is varied but he focused on the immaterial/material and also the "void". Exciting stuff considering both these things link in with my own current practice!

The particular piece that intrigues me is The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void or Le Vide (April, 1958). Klein cleared a gallery space of everything leaving only an empty cabinet. Painted the whole room white, EVERYTHING; walls, floors, the cabinet and ceilings! He then conceived an elaborate plan before the opening. He sent out blue invites (relating to his previous work), painted the gallery window blue and hung a curtain in the lobby, you've guessed it; a blue curtain. The entrance even had guards watching over it! All of the details were fine tuned, he even served blue cocktails.

He made 3000 people queue outside the gallery only to be welcomed into a blank, empty space! I love this!



Klein was a very interesting character, I mean, look at him!





He even wrote up a manifesto stating his intentions; one such line in the manifesto about the "immaterial" made me laugh:

"Having rejected nothingness, I discovered the void. The meaning of the immaterial pictorial zones, extracted from the depth of the void which by that time was of a very material order. Finding it unacceptable to sell these immaterial zones for money, I insisted in exchange for the highest quality of the immaterial, the highest quality of material payment — a bar of pure gold. Incredible as it may seem, I have actually sold a number of these pictorial immaterial states".


Absence was of great interest to Klein, for him, the void is a neutral state of consciousness where one is supposedly able to become aware of one's own sensibilities (I suppose, much like Kant's Pure Thought in the Critique of Pure Judgement?). The void is a "place" where one can see reality as opposed to mere representation. He often created work that although were recognised forms of art also lacked "something" integral. Books sans words. Paintings sans images. Compositions sans composition! Klein named his created absences as "zones of immaterial pictorial sensibility". Thus, the audience of Klein's work could be described as not only simultaneously understanding an idea but simultaneously feeling an idea!


I thought it might be nice to end this blog entry with a flash of Klein Blue!

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