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Yves Klein (28 April 1928 - 6 June 1962) was a
France|French artist.

Klein was born in Nice. Both his parents were
painters. He lived in Japan for a time, becoming
an expert in judo, before settling in Paris and
beginning to exhibit his work there. Many of these
early paintings were monochrome and in a variety
of colours.

By the late 1950s, Klein's monochrome works were
almost exclusively in a deep blue hue which he
eventually patented as International Klein Blue
(IKB, =PB29, =CI 77007). As well as conventionally
made paintings, in a number of works Klein had
naked female models covered in blue paint dragged
across or laid upon canvases to make the image,
using the models as brushes. This type of work was
called by Klein Anthropometry. Sometimes the
creation of these paintings was turned into a kind
of performance art - an event in 1960, for
example, had an audience dressed in formal evening
wear watching the models go about their task while
an instrumental ensemble played Klein's 1949
http://www.ubu.com/sound/klein.html The Monotone
Symphony, which consisted of a single sustained
chord.

Klein also made sculptures in deep blue, and
worked with fire, creating some sculptures using
it, and setting fire to some of his canvases, thus
making scorched holes in them.

Klein is also well known for a photograph, Saut
dans le vide (Leap into the Void)
http://www.v1.paris.fr/musees/Zadkine/d_Les_exposi
tions_temporaires/acrobate/images/klein.jpg ,
which apparently shows him jumping off a wall,
arms outstretched, towards the pavement. Klein
used the photograph as evidence of his
oft-mentioned unaided lunar travel.  In fact,
"Saut dans le vide" was published as part of a
broadside on the part of Klein (the "artist of
space") denouncing NASA's own lunar expeditions as
hubris and folly.  

Klein is considered an important figure in
post-war European Neo-Dada|neo-Dadaism. He engaged
in such provocations as "publishing" a chapbook
containing only empty pages and selling empty
spaces in exchange for gold which he then threw
into the river Seine. 

Klein died in Paris of a myocardial
infarction|heart attack.

== See also ==

* International Klein Blue

== External links ==

* http://members.aol.com/mindwebart3/page30.htm
Klein at Art Minimal & Conceptual Only
* http://www.ubu.com/historical/klein/klein.html
Yves Klein: Selected Writings, 1928-1962