Vampire (ANT SU 20), circa 1961,
Pigment, synthetic resin on cloth, 140 x 94 cm, private collection
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2004.
|
|
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Römerberg
60311 Frankfurt - Germany
Information:
Phone: +49 69 29 98 82-0
Fax: +49 69 29 98 82-240
e-mail: welcome@schirn.de
Web: www.schirn.de
Opening Hours:
Open everyday except Monday
Tuesday, Friday to Sunday: 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Wednesday and Thursday: 10 a.m. - 10 p.m
Admission Fees:
Full Price: 8 €
Concessions: 5 €
Family Ticket: 16 €
Director:
Max Hollein
Exhibition Curators:
Olivier Berggruen, Ingrid Pfeiffer
Press Contacts:
Dorothea Apovnik
Phone: +49 69 29 98 82-118
Fax: +49 69 29 98 82-240
e-mail: presse@schirn.de
web: www.schirn.de
(texts and images under: PRESS).
|
This important retrospective gathers more than one hundred key works thanks to loans from international museums like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Fondación del Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and from numerous private collections. It shows the major works of each phase: the first color monochrome paintings in orange, yellow, green, red, black or white; the famous blue mono-chromes and the sponge reliefs and sculptures; the much debated anthropometries, in which he employed female models as "living brushes"; the monogolds; and his final experiments with fire and elements of nature.
A work of anticipation
This multifacered work, all produced during a period of scarcely seven years, makes Yves Klein (1928-1962) one of the most important and original artists of the twentieth century. He anticipated many trends such as the happening and performance, Land Art and Body Art and elements of Conceptual Art, and it has had a lasting influence on art that continues today. His many-layered personality, which fluctuated between extreme concentration and a total lack of boundaries, is also reflected in his oeuvre, in which monochromy and figuration, spirituality and theatricality are not antithetical, but all served instead Klein’s overriding goal comprehending life by means of art
Tanscending the limits
For Olivier Berggruen and Ingrid Pfeiffer, the curators of the exhibition: "Klein’s famous photograph Leap into the Void, which depicts him floating above a street, is a symbol of the desire to overcome gravity. It is a manifestation of Klein’s will to transcend limits, which runs through his entire oeuvre. The exhibition seeks to reveal the uncommon variety and the visionary character of the artist who has entered the history books as "Yves, Le Mono-chrome". One aspect of the exhibition is Yves Klein’s relationship to Germany, and to that end numerous eyewitnesses of his time were interviewed and new, unpublished material was obtained.
Modernism and Postmodernism
"Klein’s oeuvre unites modernism and postmodernism" underlines Max Hollein, the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle, "and in doing so he also draws the demarcation line between them: on the one hand, his statements and his claim to "universality" point to the modernist avant-garde from Mondrian to Malevich; on the other hand, Klein negated and undermined the classical work of art, dissolved into an action, and styled himself as an artistic personality in a way that anticipated the strategies of Andy Warhol or Joseph Beuys. His staging of even the minutest details and the orchestration of their reception, along with his linking of art and science, make him one of the most relevant figures for current art".
PUBLICATION:
Exhibition Catalog: Yves Klein. Edited by Olivier Berggruen, Max Hollein, and Ingrid Pfeiffer. With a preface by Max Hollein and texts by Nuit Banai, Olivier Berggruen, Paolo Bianchi, Frédéric Migayrou, Elena Palumbo-Mosca, Hans Pässler, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Jean-Michel Ribettes, Nicole Root, and Günther Uecker. German and English editions, ca. 280 pages, ca. 130 color and 60 black-and-white illustrations, ISBN 3-7757-1446-4 (German), ISBN 3-7757-1447-2 (English), Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit, 29,80 €.
|
