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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現在の時代状況は、戦争や紛争により20世紀に築かれた人間性の規範が脅かされているという点で、第二次世界大戦の壊滅的な状況から新しい人間性を模索し始めた「タブラ・ラサ（白紙の状態）」と重なる。当時、ドイツのゼロ運動、イタリアの空間主義、日本の具体美術協会など新しい芸術運動が台頭していた。この展覧会では、これらの芸術に共通するテーマである「非物質性」に焦点を当てている。

展覧会は、ピノー・コレクションCEOのエマ・ラヴィーニュと金沢21世紀美術館館長の長谷川祐子の共同企画。ラヴィーニュが2020年にポンピドゥー・メスで企画した展覧会「The Sky as a Studio. Yves Klein and his contemporaries」から部分的にインスピレーションを受けている。クラインの実践が同時代のアーティストにどのように共鳴したかを示す一方、具体美術や物質・空間との関係といった「日本的要素」を掘り下げ、現代アーティストの新作を加えることで、日本、そして金沢21世紀美術館で開催される意義を強調している。

SANAAによる金沢21世紀美術館の建築空間は、天井や壁がない「空気の建築」というクラインのコンセプトを体現し、身体が自由に飛ぶような空間を生み出している。「生きる存在と高度に進化した個体の色」（クライン）をそのまま見せるために、クラインの多色画と具体美術作家・元永定正の《水の作品》が展示され、自然光による微妙な変化を感じられる「呼吸する空間」ともいえる展示が展開される。透明なガラスに囲まれた中庭ギャラリーでは、青空を背景に、クライン独自の青い顔料が床に広がり、金沢で生産される日本の金箔の99％を占める金箔屏風がアルマンのレリーフと共に展示される。

柔道四段の資格を持つクラインは、型（柔道の美学的な動作）の美学と形態を完全に体得したしなやかな身体を持ち、それが後のパフォーマンスの基礎となった。また、「空白」は日本の空間概念である「間」（隙間や負の空間）とも結びついている。広島の原爆による「人影の死」が、生命の痕跡としてクラインのアンフォルモトリ（人体測定）という概念に影響を与えた。展覧会全体が、人や物の存在感を鮮やかに引き出し、非物質的存在へと昇華させる手法や形式、儀式的美学が相互に結びつく構造となっている。

現代アーティストの作品も展示されている。ハルーン・ミルザ（1977年生）は、古代の寺院や儀式が行われた建築における響きの研究をもとに、LEDライトと音の周波数を111Hzで同期させた青い空間インスタレーションを制作。布施琳太郎（1993年生）は、Googleストリートビューの画像を青に変換し、ニューラルエンジンを使って無数の匿名で孤立した視点をつなぐ作品を発表している。この展覧会は、クラインの想像力を多角的な視点で解剖・構築することで、現代の停滞感や制約を乗り越えるための新たな想像力を呼び覚ますことを目指している。

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