Retina Candy

[susie_flo]

For some time now I've been feeling artistically jaded and seem to be lacking the slightest glimmer of inspiration.  I fear I may be starting to tire of my recent immersion in ye olde World of Paintcraft.   I'm certainly looking back at the joyful (albeit less skilful) pop-art nonsense of my early dabblings with more fondness these days. 

So imagine my pleasure last week when I visited the museum of modern art in Nice and fell totally in love with Yves Klein.  A brand new love affair - hoorah!  Although I was aware of Klein, I had before never seen - or even heard of - his series of works based on pure pigment with gold leaf.  They totally knocked my socks off...  

This piece in particular is the most stunning thing I've seen in years.



He has cast a human body in bronze and then coated it with his patented mixture of pigment and some kind of magical synthetic resin that makes it look utterly pure, as though it has no binder whatsoever.  You feel as though you could dip your finger in and the tip would come away covered in blue powder.  The whole piece is mounted onto a wood panel smothered in gold leaf.  It's just so delicious in the flesh, this photo does not do it justice.
 
A few other nice pieces include this female form, and a series of hollow glass tables filled with powdered pigment and sheets of loose gold leaf. 

Intense colour may not be everyone's cup of tea but, for me, it is so pleasurable that the act of grinding paint can be more exciting than painting.  Sometimes the little piles of powder on the glass slab are just so intense that I want to dive into a vat of them and never come out...    (and no, I don't mean that kind of powder!)

A key characteristic of powdered pigment is that it has no surface shine at all...  it's a bit like looking at the softest and most vivid piece of velvet you could ever imagine.  In my view, Yves Klein has done something miraculous here.  I really did not think it was possible to get pigment to remain so stable and unfading (given that they are 40 years old) without some kind of binder that tempers the hue and removes the velvety appearance of powder.   He has got my cogs whirring anyway...  which makes a change.

Comments

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Peculiar - it's a bit like a modern take on an icon - all that gold with bright colours.

I'd love to see a replica Greek temple with all the statues and wall carvings painted up properly.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ah... you're right! I didn't see that but I should have, it goes some way to explaining its attraction (have long had a thing about icons). Am always a sucker for gold leaf too... easily pleased really :-)

[steer.livejournal.com]

They do look so delicate and powdery! I guess computer images cannot properly do justice to vivid colours though.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

No - in fact the wikipedia page relating to Klein's trademark blue mentions that it is not possible to show the hue accurately on a computer screen.

I would like to find out whether his medium is commercially available anywhere and how to use it...

[steer.livejournal.com]

Many colours do not display accurately on computer screens (ask Kriss about "websafe" colours if you want a disapproving sour look). Weird though that he has a "trademark" -- I wonder if that is meant literally or metaphorically.