‘For a long time I've been looking for a way to communicate with the infinite through colour with the infinite. I created monochrome surfaces to liberate colour from form and object, so that it could become pure colour in itself from form and object, so that colour itself becomes pure sensitivity. The blue I've chosen is not just any blue, it's a blue that spreads out beyond borders, that engulfs the eye and the mind, a blue that is no longer a colour but a state of being’. Yves Klein
Yves Klein revolutionised the relationship between painting and the body, space and colour, making a particularly intense blue that he called IKB (International Klein Blue). In 1960, driven by a search for the immaterial, the artist filed a patent for IKB, which is associated with ultramarine blue. Applied by roller, it is a synthetic resin that binds the blue pigments without dulling them, giving a velvety effect that absorbs the eye.
IKB 12 (lot 1) will be on sale at ‘Art + Design: A Life in Pictures from the Collection of Patrizia Pilotti and Olivier Massart’ on 27 November.
