A complete cycle

After 18 months of living like a true Aixoise (who/that belongs to Aix), I’ve become quite complacent. There’s so much art, beauty, and history it can be challenging focused on my UMW classes (online.) The last few months I have secluded myself to improve my French and save money. 

I joined a friend for a late afternoon tour of the Yves Klein exhibit at the Hotel Caumont (in Aix en Provence. Yves Klein was a visionary of the Noveau Realisme, born in Nice, France. He was a powerful hybrid, an artist with the idea to patent his own creation. Klein created a signature color, A striking, powdery blue famously known as International Klein Blue (IKB). 

When faced with Klein’s masterpiece, I immediately recalled how a classmate used this image to delineate what did not qualify as “art” in his view.  

Facing the blue giant, I found new understanding, the image reflected in a photo is merely a color swatch but live, it’s about the molten intensity of the pigment, absorbing every kernel of the rough textured surface. It’s not a painting but a creation. 

In addition to the infamous blue collection, we transitioned into the fire series. Inspired by the dichotomy of the destruction and regenerative power of fire, Klein created a series of fire on canvas which was by far my favorite. Created just one year prior to his untimely death, it poses the question if he intuitively knew his end was near, transitioning from the life-giving power of blue to the intensity of fire completing a life cycle. 

“Fire, for me, is the future without forgetting the past. It is the memory of nature. […] It is a protective and terrible god, good and bad. It can contradict itself” 

YVES KLEIN, L’ÉVOLUTION DE L’ART VERS L’IMMATÉRIEL, CONFERENCE AT THE SORBONNE, 3RD AND 5TH JUNE