Saut dans le vide (Leap into the Void)
From the wiki page
"Klein presented his work in forms that were recognized as art—paintings, a book, a musical composition—but then would take away the expected content of that form (paintings without pictures, a book without words, a musical composition without in fact composition) leaving only a shell, as it were. In this way he tried to create for the audience his "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility". Instead of representing objects in a subjective, artistic way, Klein wanted his subjects to be represented by their imprint: the image of their absence. Klein's work strongly refers to a theoretical/arthistorical context as well as to philosophy/metaphysics and with his work he aimed to combine these. He tried to make his audience experience a state where an idea could simultaneously be "felt" as well as "understood"."
When writing for the allotted time in class today I focused on several points that I haven't fully formed in my own head about the work I'm interested in creating. I found this short excerpt from the wiki on Yves Klein to be extremely helpful in giving a more clarified form to the ideas I'm struggling with. While writing i focused mostly on the work of Alexander Rodchenko who in process of art making paired down common images from magazines and other mass media of the time until a more universal visual body/ language could be created as fragments of the former images. By removing elements from the larger whole images Rodchenko's process is in my mind linked with that of Klein's. While Klein's work presents as a reversal of Rodchenko's process removing that which was essential to the object in question the aim appears to be the same. In absence of the essential or in the removal of everything but the essential, attention is brought to that which is missing or that which is presented in a new and concentrated form.
Another aspect of Klein's work that I am attracted to is the last line of the excerpt presented.
"He tried to make his audience experience a state where an idea could simultaneously be "felt" as well as "understood"."
I struggle to make my images an experience beyond the physical act of looking. In the ash project of last year care was taken in its presentation to have the ashes scattered about the floor become part of the viewing experience. In transfer to the clothes air and general space the ashes produced effects within the environment as well as physical effects for the viewer as they gazed on the images of other covered in ash they too were breathing the very same ash.
