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Lot Essay
This work is recorded in the Yves Klein Archives, Paris, under no. ANT 153.
"I personally would never attempt to smear paint over my own body and become a living brush; on the contrary, I would rather put on my tuxedo and wear white gloves. I would never even think of dirtying my hand with paint. Detached and distant, the work of art must complete itself before my eyes and under my command" (Klein, quoted in N. Rosenthal, 1962: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Houston, 1982, p. 124).
With his Monochromes and IKB, or International Klein Blue, Yves Klein had already swapped the traditional paintbrush with the paint roll, which allowed him to keep more distance with his work. With the Anthropométries, he goes one step further in this direction, and uses the human body as a new tool to incarnate his attempt to create a new detached form of art. Both the body and the paint roll have the same quality, they reduce the influence of the artist's own hand. Thus, the body becomes a living paintbrush creating a beautifully sensual image.
Under the instructions of the artist, and following a ritualised ceremony, the naked model left the print of her body dipped in IKB onto the support. Yves le Monochrome, as he liked to sign his pieces, wanted to explore the Immaterial and the void; in this way, with the Anthropométrie, the Immaterial becomes a incarnation made of flesh. The intensity of Yves Klein's trademark blue is literally embodied by the imprint of the model. And the work is the result of a moment, which captures a real presence, a vital energy, in contrast to the Monochromes and the IKB, which were deliberately mechanical. On ANT 153, the part of the body that the artist considered to be vital, the woman's bust, is clearly identifiable, and the head, too influenced by intellectual forces, is anonymously absent. The manifestation of the Immaterial takes here a new form, in the realm of blue.
"I personally would never attempt to smear paint over my own body and become a living brush; on the contrary, I would rather put on my tuxedo and wear white gloves. I would never even think of dirtying my hand with paint. Detached and distant, the work of art must complete itself before my eyes and under my command" (Klein, quoted in N. Rosenthal, 1962: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Houston, 1982, p. 124).
With his Monochromes and IKB, or International Klein Blue, Yves Klein had already swapped the traditional paintbrush with the paint roll, which allowed him to keep more distance with his work. With the Anthropométries, he goes one step further in this direction, and uses the human body as a new tool to incarnate his attempt to create a new detached form of art. Both the body and the paint roll have the same quality, they reduce the influence of the artist's own hand. Thus, the body becomes a living paintbrush creating a beautifully sensual image.
Under the instructions of the artist, and following a ritualised ceremony, the naked model left the print of her body dipped in IKB onto the support. Yves le Monochrome, as he liked to sign his pieces, wanted to explore the Immaterial and the void; in this way, with the Anthropométrie, the Immaterial becomes a incarnation made of flesh. The intensity of Yves Klein's trademark blue is literally embodied by the imprint of the model. And the work is the result of a moment, which captures a real presence, a vital energy, in contrast to the Monochromes and the IKB, which were deliberately mechanical. On ANT 153, the part of the body that the artist considered to be vital, the woman's bust, is clearly identifiable, and the head, too influenced by intellectual forces, is anonymously absent. The manifestation of the Immaterial takes here a new form, in the realm of blue.