Yves Klein

Yves Klein
Le dèpassement de la problématique de l'art., 1959
13373-BK

8 5/8 x 6 5/8 in. (22 x 17 cm)

La Louvière. Editions de Montbliard (Pol Bury & André Balthazar). pp. 32. With 2 hors-texte illustrations in black-and-white. Original plain white wrappers, with titles printed in black on front cover; stapled. This legendary book of disparate texts, printed in a few hundred copies, was initially put on sale with its white cover and very few were actually sold at the time. It remains as the only collection of theoretical art writings by Klein published during his lifetime. After Klein's death the editor trimmed the book slightly and added a blue cover. Copies of this original first edition of the book, in the plain white covers, are thus of some rarity. Although the imprint describes a deluxe edition of 60 copies with a “proposition monochrome d’Yves Klein exécutée à la main et signée par l’auteur”, this was never printed. The book consists of a series of theoretical texts by Klein in which he not only espouses the importance of the ‘blue revolution’, but he also describes how he seeks to free himself from the heaviness of matter, heralding instead a passion for emptiness and space. In the book Klein lists chronologically the phases of his artistic evolution - Composition, Judo, Musique, Peinture, Sculpture, Architecture, Politique. The essays of the book are a surprise combination: a testimony is placed between a theoretical text and a speech, which is in turn followed by a manifesto of political philosophy and its economic developments; the speech that follows again announces a theoretical text, and the book ends with a curriculum vitae and a pedagogical project entitled “Création d’’un centre de sensibilité”. The texts are: “Le dépassement de la problématique de l'Art “Préparation et présentation de l'exposition du 28 avril 1958”, “Discours prononcé après le vernissage de l'époque pneumatique”, “Esquisse du manifeste technique de la révolution bleue”, “Esquisse et grandes lignes du système économique”, “Discours prononcé à l'occasion de l'exposition Tinguely à Düsseldorf (janvier 1959)”, “Exemple de collaboration réalisée, évolution générale de l’art actuel vers l'immatérialisation”, (with Werner Ruhnau, “Ma Systématique d'évolution”, “Yves Klein (dit le monochrome)”, “Histoire personnelle”, “N.B.”, and “Création d'un centre de sensibilité”. Rare only edition. – Although the imprint describes a deluxe edition of 60 copies with a “proposition monochrome d’Yves Klein exécutée à la main et signée par l’auteur”, this was probably never printed.

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