Floating Between The Heavens and The Earth

"Suaire de Mondo Cane" (Mondo Cane Shroud) by Yves Klein (1961)

When I saw this piece I thought about the Blue Man Group. The color, which is the official color of Yves Klein, is "International Klein Blue". When he started these "body imprints", he was inspired by the sweat imprints made on Judo mats when he practiced Judo. It is obvious that it is imprints of different nude women of various sizes. I am curious as to if it was set on the ground or on a wall or if the height differences are correct? (or did they stand on something?)

Why blue? Blue is a sad color (like they say, "why so blue?") as well as a cold feeling color. The deep blue of IKB makes me think of the ocean. If someone didn't know it was imprints of women's bodies, it might look like a four-legged animal from a front view (thus showing two legs).

I know that Klein also did full-body imprints (head/face and legs included) yet why did he not do so in this piece? It could be detachment from the head and the ground, an absence in the mind and not well-grounded to the earth. The middle-most figure seems to be leaning to the left and suggests a "curious" stance. The figures as a group in height (from the left) goes high-low-high-low-high-low-high. This could add onto being between the ground and the skies as "floating inbetween".

In his other works, it was that he wanted a "sense of the spirit within" and by looking up close to the painting, you can see not only the skin print, but the movements it made and the "marks of movement". Different textures are visible and suggests how the model may have moved about when making her mark. In some senses it is like recording history.

Klein did not touch the piece in the makings (as well as his other anthropometry pieces). He was always the directing hand where he'd tell the models and his students what to do. That suggests a sense of control, or even playing god.

It could be related to an advanced (or mature) version of childish hand-prints. It is messy, like a child's art work. It is similar to the sense that children make their mark with all interest of seeing the results.

Klein also did some minimalism work, his most well-known one being "Le Vide" (the void) in 1958. He was fascinated by the idea of a "void" (derived from a Zen concept) and looking into the void and also getting a sense of the void. In a gallery he exhibited at, he emptied a room except for a cabinet and painted it all white. He created an elaborate entrance to the exhibit, suggesting something phenomenal. With the massive publicity, over 3000 people waited just to see an empty white room with a cabinet. He said it was a "zone of heightened pictorial proto-mystical experience". (fun fact: everything was blue outside the room, the windows, curtains, and cocktails... he put something in the cocktails that made people urinate blue for a week) This had some Dada elements, thus some say he is part of the Neo-Dadaists. Others say he is of "post-modern" era. His work was about the physical experience more than visual.

He also did performances. In 1957, he released 1001 blue balloons for the opening of Iris Clert Gallery.

He has an series in the same nature of this piece called "Shroud Anthropometry" where he would do full-scale imprints of wome. Anthropometry is the measuring of a human body...