Methods of Interpreting the Work of Yves Klein: a comparative analysis of two approaches

Transcription

1 Methods of Interpreting the Work of Yves Klein: a comparative analysis of two approaches Anastasia Fjodorova AVC 7102: Art and Its Histories 20 October 2014

2 Fjodorova 2 An adapted version of Catherine Millet s 1982 talk was published as the article, Yves Klein: les cendres de l art/yves Klein: The Ashes of Art, in the October 2006 issue of Art- Press, to coincide with the Yves Klein retrospective that took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris between 5 October 2006 and 5 February Art- Press is a monthly, bi- lingual magazine, presumably intended for a broad, yet well- educated, English and French readership, well versed in contemporary arts. The description on its website states the publication s aim to provide news and analysis on global developments in the contemporary arts, as well as an in- depth perspective on cultural events and phenomena, and current thinking and viewpoints of artists, curators and dealers. 1 Beginning her article with the rather unusual statement of, Ho hum. Love is blind, and unfair, Millet quickly engages the audience with her conversational tone. In this brief paragraph she discusses the resurgence of interest in the work of Yves Klein, and the flux of exhibitions,that occurred in the first few years of this century. In the introduction to her essay she describes how Klein produced his 1961 fire paintings, and argues that his subsequent set of anthropometries, produced in 1962, served as the culminating synthesis of his various experiments. 2 She concludes her introduction by tracing Klein s renewed engagement with figuration back to his earlier work, taking it as far as the action of the first man who held his hand against a cave wall and blew color over it. 3 Millet s essay comprises four sections. The first section, titled A Trap for Our Beliefs, takes a combined formalist and biographical approach to the analysis of Klein s work, discussing the influence his association with mysticism and judo had on his work, as well as abstraction s dominance over art in the second half of the 1950s. 4 The second section, Woman s Body/Divine Face, interprets Klein s anthropométries, as being commentaries on the art of representation, and referencing ancient representations in Christian painting, notions of the trace, and the effect that Hiroshima had on Klein and his work. 5 The last two sections of the essay, titled Spectator/Model and Model/Painter, continue Millet s method of interpretation that fuses formalism, biographical analysis, and the effects of social and historical context. The third section, in particular, presents examples of a formalist reading of Klein s anthropométries: Since, by pivoting around the axis of the surface we have gone from the space of painting to real space, we are going to see that with the anthropométries Klein effected yet another transposition, whereby the spectacle was no longer on the canvas but all around it. The 1 Artpress on line: About us, accessed October 13, 2014, us,60.media. 2 Catherine Millet, Yves Klein: les cendres de l art/yves Klein: The ashes of art, Art- Press 327 (October 2006): 23, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost. 3 Millet, Yves Klein, Ibid. 5 Millet, Yves Klein, 25.

3 Fjodorova 3 monochrome emptied the picture object, and the anthropométries recorded only a fleeting presence there. 6 Millet s often- ambiguous tone, present in both the introduction and conclusion of her essay, can become problematic for the reader. She begins the first section with this statement: A monochrome painting fascinates because it reflects the artist s radical effort to break free of references. But the anthropométries, and the fire anthropométries in particular, are captivating for the opposite reason, because they condense the memory of a culture and concentrate the contradictory directions that modern art sought to go in. 7 The conclusion to her essay is no less ambiguous, and it would seem, that there are perhaps too many methods in use without enough elaboration on any particular one. Thierry de Duve s essay, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, sits as part of a four- part book, published as individual articles in the October journal by MIT Press. In contrast to Millet s article, this essay has been peer- reviewed and is intended for an academic readership. The language, although making significant use of theory, most prominently Marxist, is quite understandable. De Duve begins with a description of Klein s Here Lies Space, executed two years prior the latter s death, seemingly foreshadowing it. He rejects a formalist reading of Klein s work, and furthermore critiques the use of a purely psychological analysis of the artist. 8 However, de Duve, begins his essay with a brief psychological appraisal of Klein in comparison to Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, and attempts to further psychoanalyse Klein several times throughout the text. 9 Such a contradiction may perhaps be warranted, as the author explains in an earlier note that this essay serves as one section of a longer book, which examines modernist art s relation to the congruence between the aesthetic field and political- economic fields, as exemplified by the work of Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Yves Klein, and Marcel Duchamp. 10 It is clear from his introduction that de Duve aims to provide a Marxist analysis of Klein s body of work, hoping to retrospectively infer new meanings. He states, It is only the congruence of the aesthetic with the political- economic field a dated phenomenon for which Klein can do nothing, but which can do something for him that can slightly reanimate the ashes of his art, giving them their painful and retrospective meaning Ibid. 7 Ibid, Thierry de Duve and Rosalind Krauss, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, October 49 (Summer, 1989): 72-4, 9 De Duve and Krauss, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, 74, De Duve and Krauss, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, De Duve and Krauss, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, 74-5.

4 Fjodorova 4 For the majority of his essay he describes and interprets various works by Klein through a Marxist lens. For example, de Duve uses Klein s 1957 Milan exhibition of L epoca blù, in which identical monochrome paintings, each marked with a different price, were exhibited, to exemplify the artist s assimilation of artistic value to value plain and simple, that is, to exchange- value, and thus by means of the artist s identification with the capitalist, the dealer, with the owner of the means of production. 12 For the next eight pages, he continues to analyse Klein s work through terms such as labour- power, exchange- value, use- value, and owner of the means of artistic production. In some parts of the essay he references direct quotes from Marx s Critique of Political Economy, and explains in- depth what the term labour meant for Marx and his theory. 13 De Duve concludes his essay by discussing Klein s dilemma between wanting to be a painter, practising a specific trade as an artisan, and playing the artist, wanting his work to measure a pure and general exchange- value. 14 Furthermore, de Duve ends by asserting that the modern idea of aesthetic value as an economic concept is dated. 15 Comparing both Millet s and de Duve s essays, it becomes clear that despite Millet s use of accessible language, and avoidance of heavy theory, her overarching statements, never the less, tend to obfuscate the interpretation she is attempting to convey. It is perhaps not necessary to be too critical of her dipping in and out of several art- historical methods for an essay, of such short length, meant to complement a retrospective. Indeed, her approach provides an overview of how Klein s work can be interpreted; however, I would still contend that such an approach is better suited for a longer essay or article. De Duve s essay is convincingly more effective in its concise use of, for the most part, a single analytical method. Although it draws on other interpretive approaches, besides Marxist, to Klein s work, such as psychoanalysis, the use of a single method allows it to thoroughly examine a precise focus. This enables the reader to take away a more coherent analysis, than one offered by a broad overview that incorporates a few too many approaches. 12 Ibid, See de Duve and Krauss, Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer, 79, Ibid, Ibid,

5 Fjodorova 5 References: Art press. Artpress on line: About us. Accessed October 13, us.60.media. De Duve, Thierry, and Rosalind Krauss. Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer. October 49 (Summer, 1989): Hatt, Michael, and Charlotte Klonk. Formalism: Heinrich Wölfflin and Alois Reigl. In Art History: A critical introduction to its methods, edited by Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Manchester: Manchester University Press, Hatt, Michael, and Charlotte Klonk. Marxism and the social history of art. In Art History: A critical introduction to its methods, edited by Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Manchester: Manchester University Press, Millet, Catherine. Yves Klein: Les Cendres de L Art/Yves Klein: The Ashes of Art. Art- Press 327 (October, 2006): 22-27, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost.