SUCCÈS DE Biblical " S C a N D a L E

AnnMarie Perl

Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 SUCCÈS DE SUCCÈS

"SCANDALE"

and Biblical

scandal :

Yves Klein's

12 Perl What appears so striking in retro- invoked this contemporary fashion spect about the French artist Yves otherwise. Popular culture, especially Klein’s legendary Parisian debut its supposedly most vulgar varieties, performance of the Anthropome- had long provided modern artists tries in 1960 is how disparate were with inherently contentious source its shortly successive waves of material and the means with which to reception—and not without cause. challenge the dominant conventions The event was designed by Klein: to and institutions of art. 3 In contrast appeal to the beau monde invited; to the art world and the larger pub- to expose the conceits of art world lic, the beau monde applauded this

that this beau monde patronized; debut performance as “l’art,” viewing Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 and to introduce Klein and his artistic it as scandal in the tradition of the project to a much larger audience. historic avant-garde. “Yves Klein est Only the art world was genuinely un des rares contemporains,” wrote scandalized in the aftermath of the a journalist, delivering the verdict debut, refusing to recognize what of the social set in the mainstream Klein had created as art: Georges weekly magazine L’Express: “capables Mathieu, then the leading young de concevoir un ‘scandale’ digne de la French painter, dismissed it as belle époque surréaliste, et de réussir “comportement,” while the art critic son exécution, alors que Mathieu, avec Claude Rivière viewed it as “d’élé- ou sans jabot de dentelle, Dali, avec ments [d’exhibition] annexes à l’art.” 1 ou sans rhinocéros, s’essoufflent à Likewise, over the course of the next vouloir estomaquer avec une pareille year, Klein would most often serve ‘force de frappe’.” 4 The French fin-de- in the mass media as self-evident siècle expression “succès de scandale” proof of the modern artist’s deprav- ity, which, it is worth emphasizing at the start, did not dissuade Klein from in 1960 pursuing a project in late 1960 with Alain Bernardin, the king of Parisian 1 Georges Mathieu, “Le Bloc-Notes de striptease. 2 Even more, such a proj- Georges Mathieu,” Arts, March 9, 1960, 2. ect arguably appeared as a logical Claude Rivière, “Exhibitions, requins et vampires,” Combat, August 29, 1960, 9. next step, given Klein’s ongoing interests and that the debut itself had 2 “César, Duchamp et les visions d’art,” Arts, Dec. 7, 1960, Press Albums of the featured three naked young women, Yves Klein Archives. sponging themselves with paint and, under Klein’s direction, pressing 3 As Klein wrote in a manifesto of 1960: “I shout it out very loudly: ‘KITSCH, THE their wet, colored bodies against CORNY, BAD TASTE.’ This is a new notion white paper supports. Although there in ART. While we’re at it, let’s forget would be neither stripping nor teas- ART altogether!” Yves Klein, “Truth ing at the debut, Klein deliberately becomes reality,” in Klein, Overcoming the Problematics of Art: The Writings of Yves Klein, trans. Klaus Ottmann (Putnam, Conn: Spring Publications, 2007), 189.

4 J.-L. B., “Vernissage: Yves Klein,” L’Express, no. 458, March 24, 1960, 39. Anthropometries debut performance of

Perl 13 contains the beginnings of an expla- arts, to effectively become perform- nation for the divergence of opinion ing artists; indeed, the adaptability that still structures the interpretation of large-scale gestural abstraction to of Klein. Was Klein guilty, as Hal Foster dramatic presentations of painting has written, of turning “Dadaist prov- for the camera can largely account ocation” into “bourgeois spectacle?” 5 for this French and American period At stake in the answer is not only the style’s success. 7 Showmanship, which critical judgment of Klein or the mean- was encouraged in France and sup- ing of his best-known artwork but also pressed in the United States, would, the identity of what has come to be over the course of the early postwar

called the neo-avant-garde, of which period, enter modern art—an historical Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 Klein is a prime exponent. 6 process, in which Klein’s debut per- As it denotes in a single phrase formance would be critical. Formally both artwork and reception, the term entitled “Anthropométries de l’Époque “succès de scandale” emphasizes the bleue” (Anthropometries of the Blue profoundly social character of mod- Period), Klein’s debut would parody ern art. It has particular relevance to the modern male artistic subjectivity, performance, in which people encoun- descending from Picasso, in which ter art as a select group. In 1960, when artistic virtuosity was demonstrated, the Anthropometries debuted, there increasingly ostentatiously during was no medium by the name of per- the postwar period, through physical formance within modern art. However, virility. Depending upon much older, during the early postwar period, gendered stereotypes of artistic pro- several long- and short-term factors duction, this male quality-cum-force had conspired to pressure modern would be emphasized in contrasts with artists, who were engaged in the fine its apparent opposite: namely, the gentle, obliging, malleable bodies of 5 Hal Foster, The Return of the Real: The women, whether mimetically depicted Avant-garde at the end of the century or more indirectly invoked. Klein’s Blue (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996), 11. Period was, of course, a mockery of 6 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant- Picasso’s famous, early, near mono- Garde, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: chromy. Klein’s ecstatic version not University of Minnesota Press, 1984). only recast Picasso’s bohemian orig- Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “The Primary Colors for the Second Time: A Paradigm inal, stressing its religious elements, Repetition of the Neo-Avant-Garde,” but also, in recalling Picasso’s origins, October, Vol. 37 (Summer, 1986), 41-52. Hal directed attention toward how far Foster, “What’s Neo about the Neo-Avant- Picasso himself had come from the Garde?,” October, Vol. 70 (Fall, 1994), 5-32. mythic, dilapidated Bateau-Lavoir of Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “From Yves Klein’s Le Vide to Arman’s Le Plein,” in Buchloh, Montmartre. Almost sixty years later, Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: in 1960, Picasso was still very much Essays on European and American Art active, but by then a celebrity and a from 1955 to 1975 (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Communist, living in a storied castle in Press, 2000), 257–283. the south of France (in a contradiction 7 The argument that follows is fully elabo- not lost on contemporaries). Indeed, rated in: AnnMarie Perl, The Integration Picasso was painting for the cameras, of Showmanship into Modern Art: Dalí, as superlatively quickly and faultlessly Picasso, Georges Mathieu and Yves Klein, 1945–1962, Thesis (Ph. D. in History of Art)—Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2014.

14 Perl as ever, oftentimes in nothing but - shorts, with a new young female companion in attendance, serving the painter as muse, model and audience. (Paris: At the same time, moreover, such rather primal chest thumping was also being taken to a new, almost caricat- ural extreme by Mathieu. During the 1950s, Mathieu’s live and televised

Au-delà du Tachisme Tachisme du Au-delà performances of painting featured the

young, slim, chic French painter excit- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 uration,” 159. 1963), Julliard, professional and artistic relationshipbetween Mathieu and Klein in the late1950s and early 1960s, see work cited6. footnote in edly squeezing tube after tube of paint non-fig la de “Anagogie Mathieu, Georges On the increasingly competitive personal,

directly onto the canvas in repeated 8 9 explosions, whose ferocity simulated orgasm, a metaphor that Mathieu had fashionable and the noble, modeling employed as early as 1948 to describe himself also after Mathieu’s dandyism. painting as the transcendental expe- Nevertheless, Picasso still painted rience of release, of losing control, like a magician—following the figure after an intensely concentrated of praise ever more literally—and effort. 8 The debut performance of the Dalí resorted to buffoonery, neither Anthropometries would be, on one really transforming their working hand, a burlesque of Mathieu’s presen- processes. Although Jackson Pollock tations of painting, which by contrast and Mathieu had developed new left Mathieu spent and sweaty, his metaphors for painting, Pollock as a face and clothes covered with errant Western or Native American shaman, squirts and splatters of paint—and, on with his ritualistic Navajo sand paint- the other, a polemical refusal of the ing on the ground, and Mathieu as traditions of not only virtuoso painting a French medieval knight, painting but also art-object making and appre- with brushes as long as swords, both ciation altogether. The second would remained beholden to these meta- be the true scandal of the debut: Klein phors. For Klein, as for others, during would dramatize the early Christian the mid to late 1950s, Mathieu initially origin story of icon painting and thus served as a model; an early alliance, reveal contemporary art as idolatrous; however, as Klein adapted Mathieu’s the debut would be a proto-Conceptu- model and challenged his supremacy, alist call for iconoclasm. developed into a major rivalry, Mathieu When faced, as other modern and Klein becoming each other’s pri- artists of the postwar period, with the mary targets. 9 This competition made pressure of becoming a performing Klein’s personal invitation of Mathieu artist, Klein turned, as Picasso and Dalí to the debut performance of the had before him, to the newly vacated Anthropometries all the more signifi- and thus readily available modes of cant, a debut, furthermore, that would popular cultural performance that be taking place at the very gallery, had anyways long inspired the sub- the Galerie internationale d’art con- ject matter of modern art from the temporain, in which the more senior Realists and Impressionists onward: artist was regularly exhibiting and with the popular urban entertainment of which he was very much identified. magicians, clowns and the like, but with more social selectivity for the

Perl 15 That members of the media and their interdependence and, ulti- patrons of the gallery constituted the mately, their identity were revealed. 13 majority of the guests only raised the It is, in the final analysis, crucial stakes of what would emerge as a deci- sive showdown. For his part, Mathieu 10 Mathieu, “Le Bloc-Notes de Georges took care to advertise his invitation Mathieu,” 2. According to Annette Kahn, in an article published on the morn- Mathieu, as the hosting gallery’s most important artist, had approved of the ing of the event in the art-world’s event and even been invited to an infor- main newspaper, Arts, making sure mal rehearsal held two days before the also to spoil the surprise of that eve- debut, at which Mathieu reserved the right to respond in the discussion that ning’s program, featuring, as Mathieu Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 revealed: “Des femmes nues trempées would follow the performance. For a fascinating account, based on interviews, dans le bleu, projetées savamment of the specific conversations that took contre les murs.” 10 Mathieu would place in the organization of this event, fail, humiliatingly, in his attempt to see Kahn, Yves Klein: Le Maître du bleu publicly expose “cet enfant terrible, (Paris: Editions Stock, 2000), 283–286. le jeune Klein,” as Mathieu referred Kahn also reports that after the debut Mathieu forced the gallery’s director to Klein, losing that night’s artistic to choose between him and Klein. The and verbal jousts by all accounts. 11 article that Mathieu wrote and published Pure, mere parody, however, or the in Arts certainly confirms that Mathieu entertainment of watching an art star knew the program’s content beforehand. fall would not have persuaded the That, if faced with such an ultimatum, the gallerist chose Mathieu can be evidenced special social set invited to the debut by the fact that Mathieu soon had another of Klein’s significance. What deep exhibition at the gallery, while Klein never existential need did the debut perfor- showed at it again. In my interview with mance of the Anthropometries fulfill? Rotraut Klein-Moquay, who was present Or, how did Klein suspend disbelief, at the rehearsal, Ms. Klein-Moquay could not recall if Mathieu had come to the managing to convince a sophisticated, rehearsal but did not believe so. Interview socially self-conscious audience of of Rotraut Klein-Moquay conducted by the nearly a hundred people that the three author in Paris on June 16, 2011. naked young women before them were 11 Mathieu, “Le Bloc-Notes de Georges “living paintbrushes”? The answer Mathieu,” 2. See, for instance, the verdict will lead us to the original ancient of journalist cited in footnote 3. For and Biblical meaning of scandal as the an account of the debate that evening between Mathieu and Klein, see Pierre incitement of others to sin. Restany, Yves Klein, trans. John Shepley In anticipation, we may recall that (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1982), 120–121. in 1960, before performance existed as 12 Klein’s interest in religion was not excep- a fine-art medium, it appeared most tional during this period. On both sides of often and distinctively within enter- the Atlantic, there was a religious revival, tainment and religion, two struc- including in modern art, for instance, in turally opposed cultural spheres. 12 the chromatic abstraction of Mark Rothko Klein intensified this dichotomy in and Barnett Newman, whose works paral- lel Klein’s monochromes in many ways. the debut, pairing their characteristic components so systematically, that 13 Thomas McEvilley has brilliantly doc- umented Klein’s Catholic upbringing and epiphany upon his discovery of Rosicrucianism. See McEvilley, Yves the Provocateur: Yves Klein and Twentieth- Century Art (Kingston, N.Y: McPherson & Co, 2010). Critics of Klein have long derided the debut’s salacious nature. Here, I argue that it was necessarily linked 16 Perl to its sacred aspect. 14 For a summary and literary analysis of fame. But, the expression also contains ancient scandal, see David McCracken, the implication—which is in this case The scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story, misleading—that the work in ques- and Offense (New York: Oxford University tion lacks inherent artistic merit or Press, 1994), 22–28. significance. In spite of the facts that 15 Jean Yves Mock and Véronique Legrand, both the critical and popular scandal Yves Klein (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983). Thierry de Duve, “Yves that the Anthropometries generated Klein, or The Dead Dealer,” trans. Rosalind ensured Klein’s success and that, Krauss, October, Vol. 49, (Summer, 1989), especially after his premature death at 72–90. See Benjamin Buchloh’s crucial age 34, much serious scholarly atten- essays cited in footnote 5. Yve-Alain Bois,

tion has been paid to Klein, the nature Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 “Klein’s Relevance for Today,” October, Vol. 119, (Winter, 2007), 75–93. Kaira Cabañas, and value of his artistic achievement The Myth of Nouveau Réalisme: Art and is still a subject of debate within art the Performative in Postwar France history. 15 The major objections to (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). Klein’s project at the present already Nuit Banai, Public (Dis)Order: Yves Klein, existed in more or less the same form 1945–1962, Thesis (Ph. D.)—Columbia University, 2007. For the most thorough in the art criticism that followed the account of the debut performance of the Anthropometries. For this reason it is Anthropometries and the series in gen- all the more essential to fully explain eral, see Sidra Stich, Yves Klein (Ostfildern: the scandal of the Anthropometries Cantz, 1994), 171–191. in its social and cultural context. 16 Rivière, “Exhibitions, requins et vampires,” 9. “…[M]ais pourquoi,” Rivière demanded to know in 1960, “des séances fermées that the debut performance of the et mondaines?” 16 Her doubts about Anthropometries constituted both the purity of Klein’s intentions and his a succès de scandale and scandal in penchants for publicity, spectacle and the original etymological sense of exclusivity remain. Here follows an irreligious, for these two types of attempt at an explanation. scandal, separated by thousands of It was at 10 p.m., on Wednesday, years of culture, could not in principle March 9, 1960 that Klein held his one- be more disparate: the former symp- night-only, white-tie soirée, fancifully tomatic of the contorted, adversarial entitled “Anthropométries de l’Époque logic of modernism, in which offense bleue,” at the swanky Galerie interna- is enjoyed and rewarded, while the tionale d’art contemporain on the rue latter, between its Hebrew, Christian Saint-Honoré in Paris. It was a highly and Greek uses, describes an irre- anticipated event, organized late at sponsible, malicious or even cruel night in the middle of the week, at an act that is dangerous, because it can hour for illicit activity and for those potentially lead an entire community not bound by the bore of a workweek. astray, away from the true religion. 14 The debut could accurately be called a succès de scandale, in that it was undoubtedly through the work’s scandalous character that Klein achieved

Perl 17 17 Politics have throughout (in France and gallery, Comte Maurice d’Arquian. It is a the United States, during his own lifetime tactic that has been employed in Klein and since) impacted the reception of studies in general to outwardly resolve Klein, perhaps most explicitly and influ- the aspects of his person and work entially in: Dore Ashton “Art as Spectacle: The Vogue Among Plastic Artists for that appear most problematic from the Reactionary and Ritualized Actions,” Arts contemporary perspective, including magazine, Vol. 41, No. 5, (March 1967), notably his right-wing politics and his 44–46. Politics were obviously part of showmanship. 17 While Restany did Klein’s project, hence the necessity of help to compose the text of the event’s accounting for them, as Ashton does, in scholarship. For further information, invitations and introduced the debate

please see work cited in footnote 6. following the performance, and while Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 d’Arquian did host the event itself in 18 Interview of Klein by Restany, Dec. 15, 1961, 14, Fonds Pierre Restany, Archives his exhibition space, lending also his de la critique d’art, Rennes, France. In gravitas, this shifting of credit or blame conversation with Restany, Klein states: “… only diminishes and obscures Klein’s ces mises en scènes, puisque nous parlons project and achievement, starting théâtre, remontent beaucoup plus loin with the artful mise-en-scène, which puisque tu as toujours vu à quel point j’at- tachais de l’importance à tous les détails was both deliberately theatrical and des présentations de mes expositions et churchly. Expressly denying that such en particulier de la mise au point même de work was motivated by the desire for l’heure du vernissage. En tenant compte publicity, Klein insisted, in an interview de la progression avec laquelle les gens conducted by Restany in 1961, that he arrivent. Je tenais compte des circonstance psychologiques formidables, je préparais arranged every detail of his exhibitions une exposition depuis le début, avec in an effort to create an environment une précision et une mise en climat très for the serious contemplation and sérieuse. D’ailleurs on a toujours que je discussion of his art. 18 To disavow faisais cela a titre publicitaire.” And further: Klein’s showmanship is thus to refuse “Cela vient de chez mes parents, qui ont créé les lundis soirs, et je voulais recréer his project as he saw it, as well as his cette atmosphère intime d’amis qui discute crucial role in a larger historical phe- dans le cadre de mes dernières œuvres.” nomenon. At the debut, Klein catered Text has been retyped, including the exist- to the contemporary interests of his ing manual corrections on the typescript, mondaine audience in mysticism and without any modification on my part. striptease. It should be no surprise that the only previous version of Klein’s Klein would produce a jarring combi- Anthropometries was performed two nation of exactly the kind of distinct years earlier in the home of Robert class-specific activities, in which Godet, Klein’s mentor and also a mystic, such an audience would have been or that Klein would later that year engaged on any other late night of the enter into discussions about a project week. One of the strategies of Klein’s with the French importer of American defenders has been to attribute the organization of the Anthropometries to either the art critic Pierre Restany or to the owner and director of the

18 Perl striptease, Bernardin, the creator of Klein did not frequent nightclubs (if the famed, chic Crazy Horse Saloon. 19 personal preferences and habits can The common pursuits of the basest be submitted as evidence), and it physical pleasure and loftiest spiritual was likely Klein’s former gallerist, Iris awakening bonded the beau monde Clert, who suggested the collabora- and differentiated it from the ascetic, tion with Bernardin, when Klein was intellectual middle-class—for whom seeking such a contact. 20 As Clert entertainment was bread and circuses, explained, “Klein n’était pas mondain, and religion the opiate of the masses. il ne connaissait rien de tout ça.” 21 Given recent art-historical Nonetheless, nor was Klein attempting

Saloon was so chic that even Mathieu for modern art—rather than as a newly Uncompromising Reasons for Going West:

wrote an homage to Bernardin. Mathieu, Real Estate, emergent threat to it, or a potential

“Alain Bernardin: Prince de l’imaginaire,” source of, combined with its roots, Désormais seul en face de dieu (Lausanne: made it, as for Picasso the magician or L’Age d’Homme, 1998), 153. Dalí the clown, a mode competition. 23 20 Elena Palumbo-Mosca, a friend of Klein Midcentury striptease was a revival and a dancer at the debut, very kindly of nineteenth-century burlesque. Its and generously20 agreed to complete my questionnaire in February 2014, including fashionableness, its contemporaneity questions also about whether Klein visited of showmanship to be engaged and nightclubs. In photographs of the event, exploited as part of a much larger Ms. Palumbo-Mosca is identifiable as the A Story of Sex and artistic project that Klein had been dancer who is wearingWendl glasses. pursuing, arduously, throughout the 21 Interview of Iris Clert by Virginie de late 1950s, against the material, visual Caumont, March 10, 1981, within the files art object and for what Klein was related to the organization of the retro- spective exhibition of Yves Klein, held at calling the Immaterial. Describing his the Centre Pompidou in 1983, Archives of earliest artistic epiphany in retrospect, the Centre Pompidou, Centre Pompidou. Klein wrote in 1960: “Painting is no

22 Roland Barthes, “Striptease,” in Barthes, longer for me a function of the eye. My Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers works are only the ashes of my art.” 24 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 84–87.

23 The Situationist conception of the

spectacle has arguably overdetermined Reconsidered and distorted our interpretation of the postwar period and should be treated as an historical object among others, not privileged as a theoretical lens. See work cited in footnote 6.

24 Klein, “Truth becomes reality,” 183.

Perl 363 17 Politics have throughout (in France and gallery, Comte Maurice d’Arquian. It is a the United States, during his own lifetime tactic that has been employed in Klein and since) impacted the reception of studies in general to outwardly resolve Klein, perhaps most explicitly and influ- the aspects of his person and work entially in: Dore Ashton “Art as Spectacle: The Vogue Among Plastic Artists for that appear most problematic from the Reactionary and Ritualized Actions,” Arts contemporary perspective, including magazine, Vol. 41, No. 5, (March 1967), notably his right-wing politics and his 44–46. Politics were obviously part of showmanship. 17 While Restany did Klein’s project, hence the necessity of help to compose the text of the event’s accounting for them, as Ashton does, in scholarship. For further information, invitations and introduced the debate

46 des présentations de mes expositions et churchly. Expressly denying that such en particulier de la mise au point même de work was motivated by the desire for l’heure du vernissage. En tenant compte publicity, Klein insisted, in an interview de la progression avec laquelle les gens conducted by Restany in 1961, that he arrivent. Je tenais compte des circonstance psychologiques formidables, je préparais arranged every detail of his exhibitions une exposition depuis le début, avec in an effort to create an environment une précision et une mise en climat très for the serious contemplation and sérieuse. D’ailleurs on a toujours que je discussion of his art. 18 To disavow faisais cela a titre publicitaire.” And further: Klein’s showmanship is thus to refuse “Cela vient de chez mes parents, qui ont - The radiance of thecréé les lundis soirs, et je voulais recréer his project as he saw it, as well as his 47 cette atmosphère intime d’amis qui discute- crucial role in a larger historical phe- In a Deed of Gift dated dans le cadre de mes dernières œuvres.” In her photographs and poems, Farnsworth mourns the nomenon. At the debut, Klein catered “With the Leaves”: “November is hardly a month for birth: / The Text has been retyped, including the exist- 46 to the contemporary interests of his breath of love is too long cold / And the dawn comes late.…Hardly ing manual corrections on the typescript, 48 March 1, 1968, Farnsworth mondaine audience in mysticism and can I lure the dream / Back to its birth in the creating soul.” withoutdeeds toany the modificationDepartment on my part.

of Conservation of the state striptease. It should be no surprise that of Illinois strips of land near the only previous version of Klein’s elusiveness of her initial impulse upon visiting the site: to create a a proposed roadway improve significant and meaningful work of architecture that both resonated Klein would producement, “so a as jarringto preserve and combi - Anthropometries was performed two with her own desires for finding a place in a world that defined permit archeological explora nation of exactly thetion kind of the ofabove distinct site which years earlier in the home of Robert her as simply “Edith B. Farnsworth, An Unmarried Woman,” and class-specific activities,is connectedin which with early Indian Godet, Klein’s mentor and also a mystic, which had broader, cultural appeal—in other words, beauty. History…” Typed in next such an audience would have been or that Klein would (Fall later that year That she fails at this, and finds the house uncomfortable, and that to the phrase “The Grantor” is simply (and insultingly) its fame burdens her with constant weekend visits, with waking to engaged on any other late night of the enter into discussions about a project “Edith B. Farnsworth,Edith Farnsworth, An “skirts fluttering behind trees,” and visitors who “thumbed their way week. One of the strategies of Klein’sUnmarried Woman.” with the French importer of American 361 tirelessly aboard my distress” reveals a narrative far more complex defenders has been to attribute the 47 Edith B. Farnsworth, “Memoirs,” Chap. 13, unpag. than heartbreak over the loss of a rumored lover—it is heartbreakorganization of the Anthropometries over what is unattainable in any permanence. to either the art critic Pierre Restany 48 sunset is, after all, a fleeting beauty. “Human beings have always “The Poet and the Leopards,” or to the owner and director of the Northwestern TriQuarterly needed to transcend their immediate experience,” she writes, 1960), 6–12, quote is onWendl p. 6. “[b]ut how is the transcending to be done?” And perhaps here, Farnsworth reveals the ultimate architectural scandal, the one we know to be true: that our transcendence will require far more than glass, steel, and travertine.

debates about Klein’s personal char- to systematically decipher and under- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 acter and artistic intentions, it is mine such popular entertainment, as important to note that Klein himself Roland Barthes, for instance, in his was not seduced or overcome by famous essay on striptease, which was what is currently called, following its first published in 1955, and in his cul- Situationist conception, spectacle: tural criticism in general. 22 Instead of feeling compelled to either celebrate 19 “César, Duchamp et les visions d’art,” or critique popular culture, to take, Arts, Dec. 7, 1960, Press Albums of the that is, a position either for or against, Yves Klein Archives. Klein would be Klein regarded popular culture, with- creating a project for Bernardin’s new out compunctions, without concerns, nightclub. For more information, see work cited in footnote 6. The Crazy Horse as an obvious, preexisting resource Saloon was so chic that even Mathieu for modern art—rather than as a newly wrote an homage to Bernardin. Mathieu, emergent threat to it, or a potential “Alain Bernardin: Prince de l’imaginaire,” source of, combined with its roots, Désormais seul en face de dieu (Lausanne: made it, as for Picasso the magician or L’Age d’Homme, 1998), 153. Dalí the clown, a mode competition. 23 20 Elena Palumbo-Mosca, a friend of Klein Midcentury striptease was a revival and a dancer at the debut, very kindly and generously agreed to complete my of nineteenth-century burlesque. Its questionnaire in February 2014, including fashionableness, its contemporaneity questions also about whether Klein visited of showmanship to be engaged and nightclubs. In photographs of the event, exploited as part of a much larger Ms. Palumbo-Mosca is identifiable as the artistic project that Klein had been dancer who is wearing glasses. pursuing, arduously, throughout the 21 Interview of Iris Clert by Virginie de late 1950s, against the material, visual Caumont, March 10, 1981, within the files art object and for what Klein was related to the organization of the retro- spective exhibition of Yves Klein, held at calling the Immaterial. Describing his the Centre Pompidou in 1983, Archives of earliest artistic epiphany in retrospect, the Centre Pompidou, Centre Pompidou. Klein wrote in 1960: “Painting is no

23 The Situationist conception of the spectacle has arguably overdetermined and distorted our interpretation of the postwar period and should be treated as an historical object among others, not privileged as a theoretical lens. See work cited in footnote 6.

24 Klein, “Truth becomes reality,” 183.

Perl 363 - makeshift stage, or sacred space.

Spotlights illuminated the set from above, whose parameters were fixed on the floor and rear wall by large, white sheets of paper that, through their size, color and blankness relative to the overly crowded room, in turn reflected and magnified the lights’ visual impact. This arrangement was at once merely elementary scenic design,

relying pragmatically upon the most Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 cited above and extensively below, indepen complete most the constitutes dent witness account of the event.of illustration excellent an Itas serves also the power and dynamic internal to an audience in a spectacle. J.-L. B., “Vernissage,” 39. This article, basic of materials, and yet it physically

25 produced, between the ceiling, floor, wall and audience, the undeniable By 1960, Klein had already perceptual effect of an otherworldly managed, remarkably, to convince aura. It would be precisely the tension art collectors to throw gold (their between fashionable entertainment money) into the Seine in exchange for and spiritual transcendence that Immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity Zones, would transfix the audience, as well as which were nothing, no discrete thing the fact that at the moment that the materially but space, while being performance started, so did the film- consequently everything else beyond ing and photography in all directions, the physical. From the perspective of including their own. As in the best kind the art world at the debut, what Klein of Parisian spectacle, the audience also proposed was Biblical scandal, leading felt themselves to be on show. At the its precious class of patrons astray, debut, the audience members were still further away from the hallowed throughout registering each other’s art object. constantly changing and often audible At the debut, Klein took on the reactions, which were thus not only role of the master of ceremonies and mutually informing but also consti- compère, both in the original Catholic tuted part of the performance itself. 25 ritual and liturgical sense of the A few inches from the backdrop term and as a contemporary Parisian of the rear wall, similarly unorna- entertainer. The guests invited to the mented white pedestals of slightly soirée were seated in rows, organized varying heights and widths were for maximum capacity and oriented positioned in a straight line. They were toward a stage, as if in a miniature deliberately placed almost against music hall or a formal cabaret, or as in the wall, and so appeared as sacrifi- the nave of a church, with the atten- cial altars—rendering the backdrop tion of the audience focused upon the behind them an altarpiece in the midst altar ahead. Low benches, which were normally the only furniture in the bare gallery space, served as dividers—a de facto altar rail—demarcating and distinguishing the audience, sitting in darkness, and a brightly glowing

364 Perl of creation. And yet they also recalled two years earlier, Mathieu had held an magician’s props or boxes, given firstly exhibition of his paintings at the same the presence of female assistants, Galerie internationale d’art contem- secondly, Klein’s dramatic arm and porain, commemorating the 840th hand gestures, as if he were holding a anniversary of the Foundation of the magic wand or conductor’s baton, and, Order of the Templars. 27 This exhibi- thirdly, his costume. Klein presented tion functioned, simultaneously, as a himself at the debut in white-tie dress, celebration of the inauguration of the wearing a black tuxedo with white Galerie internationale d’art contem- gloves, a white winged collar and porain itself. The gallery then as an

white bow tie. Around his neck, he also institution had announced its arrival Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 wore his cross of Saint Sebastian, the on the Parisian scene with Mathieu, knightly order to which he belonged, a then France’s most exciting and con- key connection that Klein would men- troversial painter, who was thus identi- tion at the debut as proof of his moral fied with the gallery. Although Mathieu and spiritual credibility and authority. had never performed his painting for a Given the organization of the event live audience at this gallery, producing and his role, the full evening dress his paintings instead shortly before made Klein comparable to a fashion- the exhibitions, those at the debut, able American magician like Channing especially the gallery’s most devoted Pollock, who performed for celebrities patrons, would have recognized Klein’s and royals, but also to a comic French sarcastic allusions to Mathieu and magician like Mac Ronay, who wore an perhaps even sensed that the future oversized and ill-fitting tuxedo and direction of the gallery, if not of the hobbled around onstage like Charlie art world at large, may be at stake in Chaplin’s Tramp. 26 Exaggerating the the debut. Certainly, it was being chal- Tramp’s calamitous social descent, lenged from within its walls. Mac Ronay would pin, as part of his costume, a knight’s insignia on his 26 Klein cultivated such comparisons, which left breast. At the debut, Klein’s cross were based upon childhood obsessions would likewise serve at once as a that persisted into adulthood and that occasionally found, with much effort and mark of social status, ingratiating luck, splendid fulfillment—for instance, him with the beau monde present, when Klein did join the Order of Saint and equally as a prop: for a joke on Sebastian, or manipulated photographs Mathieu. Klein typically only wore his to show that he could fly, disappear into full knightly regalia for official gath- light or conjure it in his palm. McEvilley documents Klein’s early obsessions with erings of the Knights of the Order of Mandrake the Magician and the knights Saint Sebastian. The partial exception of the Holy Grail, finding ample evi- that he made for the debut parodied dence for their surprisingly strong and Mathieu, ever the flamboyant dresser, unembarrassed continuity among the appearing that evening also in a lace witness accounts of his family, friends and collaborators. See McEvilley, Yves the jabot, but often in more elaborate Provocateur: Yves Klein and Twentieth- costume for his own gallery openings Century Art. or performances of painting. Only 27 On this exhibition and Mathieu’s larger project, see work cited in footnote 6.

Perl 365 Klein’s show began with music. journalist called “leur lent ballet du Appropriately sited against the wall, as seau au mur.” 29 This was, on one hand, in a choir, were the vocal and musical song-and-dance entertainment, and instrumentalists, nine in total, who, at yet so bare, in the total simplicity of Klein’s imperious, conductorial sig- the music and the nakedness of the nal, began to perform his Monotone women, and so extraordinary that it Symphony, which consisted of twenty left the audience members astounded: minutes of one continuous note. 28 It Nothing like this could be seen any- was monastic in its austerity. Once the where in Paris, not in Montmartre, not music had begun, the three women in Montparnasse, much less near the

entered the gallery space, carrying Louvre (where the gallery was), for Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 pails of paint, and began what the the simple reason that it was illegal in France to put on such a show of naked people in movement. Striptease, since 28 While Klein’s symphony in principle calls the opening of Bernardin’s nightclub for 20 minutes of silence to follow the Crazy Horse in the early fifties, had 20 minutes of music, accounts vary as made burlesque trendy again and to whether there was silence following even mainstream, Brigitte Bardot, for the music at the debut. Contemporary accounts do not mention any silence. On example, performing one herself in the event, Klein writes of “an ‘after-si- the film Mademoiselle Striptease of lence’ after all sounds had ended in each 1956. 30 In striptease, however, which of us who were present at that manifes- adhered to the law, a woman would tation.” This silence, however, seems to dance until only her very last, hardly have been speculative, individual and internal, rather than a coordinated part of visible undergarments remained and the performance experienced as a group. then stop, after which the curtain Klein, “Truth becomes reality,” 187. would close. The combination of total

29 J.-L. B., “Vernissage: Yves Klein,” 39. nudity and movement, especially in public, was illegal. 31 It was forbidden 30 For a contemporary interpretation of Bardot’s influence as liberatory for women, by Article 330 of the old French penal see Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot code, in effect during the debut, con- and the Lolita Syndrome, trans. Bernard demning the crime of “l’outrage public Fretchman (New York: Arno Press, 1972). à la pudeur” (public indecency), which (First published in 1959.) It should be was punishable by imprisonment mentioned here that striptease, even by as keen a critic as Barthes, was not and a fine. 32 The only place where perceived from the feminist perspective total nudity in public was effectively that it is today. The question of gender, allowed—although there the assump- or the objectification of female bodies for tion was that the person would remain the male gaze, was not problematized. stationary—was in national art schools Although Barthes did note that the prac- tice objectified women, his interest was or artist’s private studios, so that art elsewhere. See Barthes, “Striptease,” 84–87. students and artists could directly

31 Denys Chevalier, Métaphysique Du Strip- Tease (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1961), 90.

32 Code pénal (ancien), “Article 330.” Accessed on Aug. 22, 2014. http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

366 Perl observe the human form. 33 The debut 33 Chevalier, 90, 92. On contemporary performance of the Anthropometries debates on nudisme in French tourist des- broke the law, and Klein could have tinations, especially beaches, which often hinged on the difference between private been reported to the Prefecture of and public display, see Stephen L. Harp, Police of Paris, although he was not. “Vacation au naturel: European Nudism Had Klein been, he surely would have and Postwar Municipal Development offered the explanation that he did on the French Riviera,” The Journal of to those present at the debut imme- Modern History, Vol. 83, No. 3 (September 2011), 513–543. diately after the conclusion of the performance: that, as the journalist of 34 J.-L. B., “Vernissage: Yves Klein,” 39.

L’Express recorded it, mentioning also 35 For a different set of reactions to the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 that Klein was smiling as he spoke, the same problem in the United States, see audience members had been guests Caroline A. Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist in his studio and surprised him at (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, work. 34 As the artist’s studio was in 1996). general being opened up to photog- 36 J.-L. B., “Vernissage: Yves Klein,” 39. raphy and film and collapsing increasingly with the exhibition space of the 37 Ibid. gallery, it would not have been an unreasonable claim. Klein was never- Religious rhetoric reigned in the theless exploiting the exceptionality performance, experientially, explicitly and sacredness with which modern in Klein’s speech and metaphorically, secular society regarded the artist’s in an atmosphere saturated with studio. 35 In its worship of individ- symbolism. While it did not survive as ual talent, or genius—the endpoint clearly as Klein’s showmanship in the of Renaissance humanism—society visual reproductions of the event, the had replaced religion with art, a new, journalist from L’Express recorded his neo-pagan idolatry of man and espe- impressions, as well as Klein’s words, cially of manmade creations of female in direct quotations of such detail that flesh, which were most problematic one imagines that he was taking notes from a Christian perspective. In a as Klein spoke. Referring to the gallery paradox that had already reached its space as “[l]e choix des élus,” “La Terre apogee, with the French Salon-style Promise,” the writer observed, even nudes of the late nineteenth century, before the performance began, “une these female nudes, even if ostensi- espèce de silence qui était déjà un bly erotic and exciting, had become silence d’église.” 36 Afterwards, the very uninspiring and banal indeed, audience awoke from it, as if from a and only more so in an age of main- trance, themselves reaching toward stream, middle-class striptease. At religion for the vocabulary to explain the debut, the nudes would serve as what had happened: “Les gens para- decoy: the most obvious incarnation of issaient émerger d’un songe. Ils se base visual pleasure, whose enjoyment secouaient. Il y eut des mots froissés: would forestall the recognition and rituel, cérémonial, messe.” 37 When contemplation of the true art. Klein the women appeared, despite the was abetted by the fact that the social gasps heard around the room, their set present would never have admit- nudity, according to the writer, ted such a pleasure, even if they had experienced it, or, conversely, still less, any shock or prudery.

Perl 367 appeared natural, holy, innocent: “On rite. Instead of hanging a crucifix with eut dit trois bonnes d’auberge mali- the male nude body of Jesus over cieusement déshabillées par la foudre the altar as in a church, Klein, acting au moment où elles allaient laver les nevertheless as a priest administering planchers—et qui ne se sont encore a mass, introduced three nude women aperçues de rien.” 38 This contrasted into the sacred altar space. Their num- with the worldly nakedness of the ber was suggestive of the Trinity but society women, whose formal dress also, because of their gender, youth, made them look naked, the writer beauty and movement, the three describing: “dames exposant toute la graces of Greek mythology. Had there

vaste peau qu’il faut pour qu’on puisse been one nude or four, the bodies Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 les dire très habillées.” 39 Klein himself would not have been made metaphor- employed the terminology of religion ical and become divine. Within the to discuss the female models and body traditions of painting, this was at once parts engaged as “outils de chair.” 40 history painting, lofty in its religious The journalist then quoted Klein and mythological subject matter, directly, including his gestures: and yet belonged also to the always Mais attention: j’ai bien dit la polemical genre of the nude. It also chair, vous avez pu remarquer constituted a tableau vivant, which que jamais les mains ni les pieds was a genre often used to morally and ne sont intervenus (c’est vrai, legally justify especially early bur- j’avais remarqué), les mains et lesque, in which, however, there could les pieds pensent, ce n’est pas de legally be no movement. The selection le chair. La chair (geste de Klein) and choreography of these bodies, c’est ça! Vous savez aussi (gentil which Klein chose for their similarly sourire) que j’appartiens à un ideal sizes and shapes, must have ordre de chevalerie relevant de la presented the same challenge as the chrétienté occidentale. En Bien! composition of such bodies in paint- (le sourire devient un charmant ing and sculpture for countless other sourire d’excuse, geste vers artists in the Western tradition, or, it le mur) je crois à la résurrection must be mentioned, for showmen of de la chair. 41 erotic entertainment, like Bernardin. Klein invoked Christian theology, At the debut, the female models employing his membership in an order moved fluently, with careful, coordi- of Knights in order to insist upon the nated and yet independent actions in a authenticity of his faith, but he pro- kind of dance that Klein had developed duced instead an esoteric initiation beforehand. While two of the “living paintbrushes” pressed themselves against the wall, Elena Palumbo-Mosca, 38 Ibid. a professional dancer, was tasked

39 Ibid. with creating a “monochrome,” the modernist form for which Klein was 40 Ibid. known, on the floor. 42 Because the 41 Ibid., Italics in original. actions were not improvised and were, 42 Author’s questionnaire completed by on the contrary, heavily rehearsed, Elena Palumbo-Mosca, February 2014.

368 Perl fundamental observation that the Anthropometries, in addition to some of Klein’s other works, constitute icon

Painting and and index, noting also that Klein’s term for related works, “anthropométrie (Paris: Centre suaire,” recalls the imprint of Christ’s face on the Veil of Veronica. 44 The Veil of Veronica is just one example of a class of sacred images, called acheiropoieta, which were miracu- (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 11.

lously made without human hands. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 blue, see Michael Baxandall, Michael see blue, Jean Yves Mock and Véronique Legrand, Georges Pompidou, 1983), 224–225. On the preciousness of ultramarine Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy:Primer A in the Social History of PictorialStyle Nan Rosenthal, “La lévitation assistée,” in Yves Klein: 3 mars–23 mai 1983, Muséemoderne d’art national 183. reality,” becomes “Truth Klein,

These were created either directly by

43 44 45 saints or angels, or, indirectly, through physical impressions. Through his they had acquired the formalized and invention of the “living paintbrushes,” fixed quality of ritual. Whereas a priest Klein was producing modern-day would have performed the sacrament acheiropoieta, which he ironically of the Eucharist, consecrating the called Anthropometries—as if he were bread and the wine, Klein displayed applying the current techniques of in life, making no demands upon the anthropology, only not to primitive or imagination, not a mutilated, cruci- exotic population groups, but rather, fied figure of Christ, but female flesh quite absurdly, to deities, or, ordinary itself, healthy and perfect and covered European women. Klein was claiming in ultramarine blue paint, historically, to represent the world more truth- the most precious pigment after fully than any modern social scientific gold. 43 Klein’s audience did not have method, which depended upon purely to believe, as he declared that he did, mechanical and statistical mathemat- in the resurrection of the flesh, for ical measurements. As with the first he had accomplished it, otherwise. generation of abstract artists, like Klein was using his signature color, Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian, which he had patented as International mysticism informed Klein’s artistic Klein Blue, but, in the context of the project and led him to reject represen- Anthropometries, the color also func- tation in the quest for a higher, deeper tioned as it had conventionally, from reality. Klein’s paintings, as he wrote, the Byzantine icon onward, as the blue “only ashes of [his] art,” were to be mantle of the Virgin Mary, as a kind of viewed like religious icons, not, that is, clothing for the body. as objects of adulation in themselves, At the debut, Klein was mak- but rather as mere traces, suggestions ing icons, just as the first Christian or indications of a wholly other realm, icons had been made, according to or, at most, as special sites upon which the legends: as firsthand impressions the conceptual, the ideational could of divine figures, the very procedure exceptionally rest inside the material that had justified image-making in world. 45 “With this rather technical early Christianity, despite the fact that the Ten Commandments and the New Testament had expressly forbidden it as idolatry. Nan Rosenthal made the

Perl 369 demonstration I wanted to, above all,” wrote Klein on the debut, “tear away , No. the veil from the temple of the studio.” 46 “The shreds,” Klein continued, “of this torn veil of the temple/studio provides me with miraculous shrouds. All is useful to me.” 47 By 1960, when abstract painting was already in deep crisis in France, Klein was seeking to , pp. 39. Author’s questionnaire destroy lowly art-object making, or at

least displace it from its position of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 art, see: Irene V. Small, “Believing inThe Art: Votive Structures of Conceptual Art,” 294–307. 2009), (Spring-Autumn, 55/56 Palumbo-Mosca, who participated in eventthe as a pinceau vivant, used the sameverb “secouer” to describe the audience’sreaction. J.-L. B., “Vernissage: Yves Klein,” Palumbo-Mosca, Elena by completed 2014. February Ibid., 187. Ibid., 187. Ibid., On the religious character of Conceptual Aesthetics and Anthropology RES: Elena and above quoted reporter The L’Express

paramount importance, as it was similarly restricted to the world of appear- 46 47 48 49 ances, in favor of another kind of more spiritual and cerebral Immaterial or It was dangerous, scandalous in the Conceptual art, which had not yet original Biblical sense: Klein was coalesced. 48 Witness accounts inde- persuading the patrons and critics pendently testify that the audience at of the art world that modern art, as the debut was upset after the perfor- it stood, was idolatry: A vapid and mance, which supports the idea that mistaken visual delight, as his provoc- the Baudelairean imperative to “épater ative equation of contemporary action le bourgeois” was upheld. 49 But the painting with pedestrian nightclub debut was much more than offensive. entertainment contended. What Klein was offering instead was a truer, more spiritually and intellectually fulfilling art.

370 Perl Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00051/1610821/thld_a_00051.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021

Perl 371