On Tuesday December 21st, 2021, PIASA is organizing an auction entirely dedicated to editions; prints, illustrated books and other multiple works. The highlight of the sale, a sculpture of The Dying Slave after Michelangelo by Yves Klein will be presented to collectors.
To a journalist who asked him about the happiest day of his life, Yves Klein replied: "If there is a specific event that has made me truly happy, I would choose this success in capturing this Blue that I wanted to be unique in the world."
A little over sixty years ago, Yves Klein sent a Soleau envelope containing the chemical formula for International Klein Blue (IKB) to the French National Institute of Industrial Property. An artistic gesture, concluding a long chromatic quest.
This technical feat was made possible by Édouard Adam (1932-2015), a color merchant whose Parisian store was a haven for artists of the second half of the 20th century. The challenge for Klein was great. He had to preserve the depth of ultramarine blue, and above all its brilliance, by inventing a formula that would prevent the pigment from fading.
The beginnings were laborious. The blue pigment invariably loses its velvety appearance and intensity once dry. This was due to the binder needed to fix the color. Klein and Adam tried different formulas - linseed oil, skin glue, casein - but without real success.
"I looked for a fixing medium capable of fixing each grain of pigment to each other, and then to the support, without any of them being altered or deprived of their autonomous possibilities of radiation, while at the same time becoming one with the others and with the support, thus creating the colored mass, the pictorial surface."
By dint of persistence, the ideal formula was finally discovered. By combining the overseas pigment with a synthetic resin, Rhodopas M60A, the original aspect of the pure color is preserved. Indeed, this resin, which also acts as a fixative, has a strong capacity to shrink as it dries, allowing the pigment to remain matte and fluffy - unlike other binders.
The first use of IKB was for monochromes. Later, it was objects, sponges and then reduced sculptures that Klein found aesthetically important: The Victory of Samothrace, The Venus of Alexandria, The Blue Earth and finally Michelangelo's Dying Slave.
Yves Klein (1928-1962)
Dying Slave after Michelangelo (1962) - 1992
Estimate: 40 000 / 60 000 €
It is this last piece that we present today. Created in 1962, it is the last sculpture of the artist, who died prematurely a few months earlier. An icon of art for some, a historical enigma for others, the representation of this young man has fascinated since its creation. With his sensual hands, he slowly touches the straps that surround his chest. The curls of his hair so skillfully worked respond to the arm folded above his head and give this figure an air of eternity.
It is not surprising that Klein takes up this mythical image and magnifies it - if it were necessary - by applying the color "immaterial, this blue so perfect that it leads to dreams and meditation."
"Blue has no dimensions. It is out of dimensions, while the other colors, them, have some [...] All the colors bring associations of concrete, material or tangible ideas in a psychological way, while the blue recalls at most the sea and the sky, what there is after all of more abstract in the tangible and visible nature".
