Yves Klein

YVES KLEIN (Nice, 1928-Paris, 1962).
"L'esclave mourant according to Michelangelo", 1962.
IKB pigment applied on plaster core and synthetic resin.
Sculpture signed "R. Klein-Moquay" and numbered on the label under the base.
Edition of 300 copies. Copy 23/300.
Publisher: J.P. Ledeur, Paris.
With label.
With protective plexiglass box.
The original model was created by Yves Klein in 1962, the edition made in 1992.
Provenance: private collection.
Bibliography:
- Paul Wember, Yves Klein, Cologne, 1969, no. S 20, model reproduced on page 98.
- Stich Cider, Yves Klein, Stuttgart, 1994, model reproduced on page 247.
- Jean-Paul Ledeur, Yves Klein, Catalogue raisonné of editions and published sculptures, Editions Guy Pieters, 2000, model reproduced on page 248.
Measurements: 60 x 18 x 16 cm; 67 x 32 x 25 x 25 cm (with base).

"The Dying Slave", inspired by Michelangelo's David, was the last work of the artist, who died in 1962. Michelangelo's sculpture, created in 1513, was originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, but was finally discarded from the project in 1542. The statue was then offered by the artist to Roberto Strozzi and entered the collections of Francesco I. Yves Klein was attracted by the tragic force of this grandiose piece by Michelangelo. By replicating it with his "International Klein Blue" he makes it his own, investing it with a new meaning: turning the slave nightmare into a utopia of liberation.

The patented ultramarine blue pigment "International Klein Blue" was created by Yves Klein in the years 1955-1960 after a long research: "I was looking for a fixing medium capable of fixing each pigment grain to each other and then to the support, without any of them being altered or deprived of their autonomous possibilities of irradiation, while at the same time uniting with the others and with the support, thus creating the colored mass, the pictorial surface".

A key artist of the neo-Dadaist movement, Yves Klein was born into a family of artists, although he began his career as a judoka. Deeply attracted by the philosophy and practice of judo, he studied at the Kodokan Institute in Tokyo, whose judo school is strongly influenced by Zen philosophy. Also from a very young age Klein became interested in the Christian religiosity of the Rosicrucian Order, combining the search for a state of emptiness and total harmony of Zen with the ritual and immateriality of the Rosicrucians. These aspects will remain in his personality for the rest of his life, and will have their expression in his art. Klein began painting in the 1950s, and presented himself as a visual artist at the 1955 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris, with the monochrome "Expression of the Universe in the Color Mino Orange". However, the Salon rejected his work, arguing that a single color was not enough to create a painting. In this first stage Klein will make monochrome works, using a roller and not a brush to eliminate any trace of the artist's hand. Color becomes the protagonist, as materialized sensibility, as sensory perception. In particular, the most important color for him will be blue, to which the artist attributes the most abstract motifs of tangible nature, such as the sky and the sea. In this context, Klein searched for a long time for a blue that preserved the original luminosity of the pigment, until he came up with IKB (International Klein Blue). This is a deep ultramarine blue that the artist himself developed and patented. Throughout his career he showed his work in exhibitions held in cities such as Milan, Paris, Dusseldorf and London, gaining rapid international recognition. He also explored beyond painting, proposing a personal architectural idea that replaces walls with air currents, or with exhibitions such as "Le Vide" (Paris, 1958), in which he presented a completely empty room, painted by him in white. He has also produced outstanding series such as "Anthropometries", body prints in blue, pink or gold, and "Cosmogonies", where Klein captures the traces of wind and rain. Works by Yves Klein are currently on view in major museums around the world, including MoMA, the Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museums in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, the MUMOK in Vienna, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the MNCARS in Madrid, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome and other public and private collections.