View of the exhibition "Yves Klein - Painter of Space", Guardian Art Center, Beijing, 2023. Photo courtesy of Guardian Art Center.
"Yves Klein - Painter of Space" is the first retrospective in China on the pioneering artist of action art and the immaterial practices of contemporary art. The exhibition presents a collection of more than 60 works and a large selection of documents - drawings, photographs and films - taking into account all the techniques that the artist developed during his short but intense career between 1954 and 1962.
The exhibition examines three of the main issues present in his work: monochromatism, the material nature of the flesh, and the immaterial charachter of art, for Yves Klein's work rests on a dynamic balance between two poles: the visible and in the invisible, matter and emptiness, flesh and immaterial.
The exhibition presents his entire trajectory: the first monochrome paintings in color, the famous blue monochromes, the reliefs and sponge sculptures, the Anthropometries, the monogolds and his last experiments with natural elements such as fire, air and water. Constructed in just seven years, Klein's bold work, which anticipates many later trends and remains fully relevant today.