Yves Klein is known as the artist of the blue, well known for his deep and vivid renderings of this color that seem to pull the viewer into it: International Klein Blue (IKB). He emerged from the tabula rasa [blank slate] of the devastated postwar period as an artist in search of a new humanity like some sort of comet. When Klein was 20 years old, he spent time on the beach in Nice with the poet Claude Pascal and the sculptor Arman, and the three of them came up with the idea of “dividing the world.” Klein wanted the blue sky, and the episode where he was said to have claimed the sky and its infinite expanse as a work of art by signing his name across it demonstrates his interest in immateriality, the freedom of the spirit, leaping into space, and a cosmic imagination.
Through his actions and performances, Klein used colors such as blue, which he considered to be the most immaterial and spiritual, fire, water, and air, so that art could be experienced through sensibility, rather than being perceived just as a material object. As a young man, Klein came to Japan and earned a black belt in judo, and is known for his exploration of the relationship between the spirit and the body.
During the same period, the Italian Spatialism movement, Zero from Germany, and Gutai in Japan gained momentum with their experimental attempts at art that rose from the ruins, reexamining the relationship between the human body, material, and space from scratch. This exhibition, centered on Yves Klein while also including artists from these movements that were active around the same period as well as contemporary artists, will highlight the theme of immateriality that is common to their art.
Amid the current confusion caused by a myriad of unseen things, such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the information environment of the internet, we find ourselves in a state of uncertainty where the substance of things remains opaque to us. As such, Klein’s explorations of a sensibility and spirituality produced by immateriality inspires the creation of contemporary artists, including those of the post-internet generation. This exhibition promises to give us a sense of joy and the strength to feel and imagine that which is not here and now, and to overcome the uncertain present.

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The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is holding the exhibition The Timeless Imagination of Yves Klein: Uncertainty and the Immateriality, featuring works by one of the pioneers of conceptual art, Yves Klein (1928–1962). Showcased at this exhibition are both postwar artists who were active around the same period as Klein, and contemporary artists active today who have been influenced by him.

The current moment, at a time when the norms of humanity established over the course of the 20th century are being threatened due to war and conflict, overlaps with the state of tabula rasa brought about by the devastation of World War II, from which the search for a new humanity had to begin. At the time, new artistic movements were emerging, such as Zero in Germany, the Spatialism movement in Italy, and Gutai in Japan. This exhibition highlights the theme of “immateriality” that is common to their art.

This exhibition was conceived in collaboration with Emma Lavigne, CEO of the Pinault Collection, and Yuko Hasegawa, director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and was inspired in part by the 2020 exhibition The Sky as a Studio. Yves Klein and his contemporaries organized by Lavigne, the director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz at the time. While demonstrating how Klein’s practice resonated with that of his contemporaries, the exhibition delves deeper into Gutai and expands on the “Japanese elements” pertaining to the relationship between physicality, material, and space, while also adding new works by contemporary artists to emphasize the significance of this exhibition being held in Japan today, and at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art.

The architectural space of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, designed by SANAA, embraces Klein's concept of “Air Architecture,” which is bereft of either ceilings or walls, allowing the body to fly freely within. In order to show the colors of “living beings and highly evolved individuals” (Klein) as they are, both Klein’s polychrome paintings and Gutai artist Sadamasa Motonaga’s Work (Water) are displayed in what might be called a “breathing space,” where the light changes subtly with the natural illumination. In the central courtyard gallery surrounded by transparent glass, Klein’s unique blue pigment is laid out on the floor against the backdrop of the blue sky. A pair of gold folding screens from Kanazawa, which produces 99% of Japan’s gold leaf, is placed in the same gallery as Arman’s relief. Having attained a 4th dan black belt in judo, Klein’s supple body, which had thoroughly imbibed the aesthetics and forms of the katas (the aesthetic counterpart of judo actions), would go on to become the basis for the performances that followed. The void is also connected to the Japanese spatial concept of ma (a gap, or negative space). The human silhouette etched by the radiant heat of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima — Human Shadow of Death — inspired Klein’s concept of Anthropometry as a trace of life. The exhibition was designed so that the methodologies, forms and formats, and ritual aesthetics that would permit people or things to be sublimated into an immaterial existence by drawing out their sense of presence in a vivid manner would become interlinked with each other.

Contemporary artists active today are also featured in the exhibition. Based on his research into echoes in ancient temples and buildings where rituals used to be held, Haroon Mirza (b. 1977) created a blue space installation that synchronizes the frequencies of LED lights and sounds at 111 Hz, while Rintaro Fuse (b. 1993) created a work that turns images from Google Street View blue, and connects these countless anonymous and solitary viewpoints to each other using a neural engine. This exhibition seeks to reinvigorate our imaginative faculties, so that Klein’s imagination, which becomes palpable by being dissected and structured from multiple perspectives, might help us to overcome the stagnation and constriction of our present moment.

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