Yves Klein French, 1928-1962
Untitled Blue Sponge Sculpture (SE 322), c. 1961
Dry pigment and synthetic resin on natural sponge
Sponge: 3.5 x 7 x 6 cm; (1 3/8 x 2 3/4 x 2 3/8 in.)
Overall: 16 x 7 x 6 cm; (6 1/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 3/8 in.)
Overall: 16 x 7 x 6 cm; (6 1/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 3/8 in.)
Copyright The Artist
This work belongs to Yves Klein’s Sculpture-Éponge series, a key medium in the development of his artistic and philosophical programme. The series grew directly from his monochrome paintings in International...
This work belongs to Yves Klein’s Sculpture-Éponge series, a key medium in the development of his artistic and philosophical programme. The series grew directly from his monochrome paintings in International Klein Blue (IKB), which Klein conceived as the visible manifestation of an otherwise immaterial cosmic energy.
By 1956 Klein had recognised the absorbent capacity of natural sponge as a way of capturing and holding this pigment. Saturated with IKB, sponges functioned both as sculptural objects and as repositories of colour, their porous surfaces preserving the intensity and material presence of the blue. Klein used them in several ways: attached to canvases as relief elements or mounted on armatures to form biomorphic, sometimes anthropomorphic, sculptures.
The sponge sculptures were first exhibited in Paris in 1959, where groups of them formed an environment of closely related yet distinct objects surrounding the viewer. Klein described these works as a kind of portrait: “Thanks to the sponges – raw living matter – I was going to be able to make portraits of the observers of my monochromes, who, after having voyaged in the blue of my pictures, return totally impregnated in sensibility, as are the sponges.”
Examples from this series are held in major museum collections, including the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), Los Angeles.
By 1956 Klein had recognised the absorbent capacity of natural sponge as a way of capturing and holding this pigment. Saturated with IKB, sponges functioned both as sculptural objects and as repositories of colour, their porous surfaces preserving the intensity and material presence of the blue. Klein used them in several ways: attached to canvases as relief elements or mounted on armatures to form biomorphic, sometimes anthropomorphic, sculptures.
The sponge sculptures were first exhibited in Paris in 1959, where groups of them formed an environment of closely related yet distinct objects surrounding the viewer. Klein described these works as a kind of portrait: “Thanks to the sponges – raw living matter – I was going to be able to make portraits of the observers of my monochromes, who, after having voyaged in the blue of my pictures, return totally impregnated in sensibility, as are the sponges.”
Examples from this series are held in major museum collections, including the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), Los Angeles.