Making something out of nothing: Yves Klein’s Le Vide

Best known for for his International Klein Blue, the patented colour and the series of corresponding monochrome paintings. Yves Klein attracts me as an artistic figure, because I see a lot of similarities between his performances, artistic acts and religious rituals. In this paper I would focus on finding the similarities between Klein’s oeuvre and the triad of the deity – the priest – the ritual. Taking in consideration the most referred theme in the artist’s works – the Void, I would make a comparison with Klein’s another regular referencing to the Law and the Authorities. In this paper I would look for the explanation of the link between the Law and the Void by researching the details of presentations and performances that would connect both the Void and the Law. I would focus mostly on the framing of the events, for example: invitation cards, placement, timing of the event, the addressee, the audience, the tools and the medium. For Klein the dedication of each of his artwork and it’s placement would determine the value and especially the medium. Notably, for Klein, the art-process would be spread even over the elements that are traditionally considered additional in arts. Klein would melt the sacred and secular elements of the art-works together, making a shift in the register of the object: making the art-work serve as an every-day object (opposite to the the ready-mades of Duchamp), or add an artistic, transcendental meaning to the every- day object, similar process to making fetishes. The brushes, the visitors, the invitation cards and the timing of the event would be a part of the artistic process, equally important to the art-work itself. The aim of the paper is to understand what would be the ultimate dedication of Klein’s artworks, whom or what would they would be addressed to.