A New MoMA Exhibit Reveals How Yves Klein Leaped Into The Void — And Got Photographed

One autumn afternoon in 1960, Yves Klein put on a suit and jumped off a roof. It was a leap of faith, a soaring vault out of suburbia, hurtling the young artist into a metaphysical realm he termed the void. Photographically documented, his feat was displayed on newsstands throughout Paris, rattling everyone who encountered it. Yet for all his audacity, Klein wasn’t crazy. The picture was a photomontage, combining an image of him jumping into a net with a view of the empty street.

Leap Into the Void is one of Klein’s most famous artworks – as iconic as the monochrome paintings that established his reputation – viscerally evoking a realm beyond everyday experience. But, unlike his monochromes, his leap was a collaborative effort, a work that would not exist without the trick photography of Harry Shunk and János Kender.

Shunk and who…? Harry Shunk and János Kender are hardly household names – even in households filled with contemporary art – yet their photography facilitated many important works of the ’60s and ’70s. A focused exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art gives them the recognition they deserve.

Their importance is a measure of how important photography became as artists explored immateriality. Over several weeks in the winter of 1971, for instance, twenty-seven artists created ephemeral works on Pier 18 in New York City. The works were seen by nobody except the artists and Shunk-Kender, whose black-and-white prints were the only record: the only physical instantiation of the twenty-seven performances and actions.

One set of images shows John Baldessari attempting to frame New York harbor with his fingers. Another shows Vito Acconci wandering around the pier blindfolded, guided by a man he had misgivings about. (“The piece measures my trust,” he noted. “More than that, it builds up trust. The question is: will the trust last – does this trust deserve to last – once the piece is over?”) Acconci’s performance is a sort of gritty New York pendant to Klein’s leap of faith.

As photographers, Shunk and Kender were impressively versatile – as versatile as their varied subjects demanded. What unifies the images is their conceptual peculiarity. Since the art could never be experienced outside of these photographs, the photographs are free of documentary contingency. And that has an effect on the subjects they depict. Like paintings, the performances are eternally present.

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