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14/3/2006

Yves Klein. Air architecture

MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Wien

Visionary Living Space for the Future at the MAK Gallery

“Air Architecture" is the first time that Yves Klein’s concept of an immaterial architecture of ephemeral elements such as air, fire, and water is in the focus of an exhibition. With his revolutionary visions, Yves Klein (1928-1962) sought to bring about liberation from materiality, giving humans direct access to the sky and the boundless space of the universe. The exhibition, which was premiered 2004 at MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, provides a first-time insight into this part of his oeuvre in terms of drawings, texts, and photographs from the Paris Yves Klein Archive. In addition, video screenings will revive some of his most transient art works.

Yves Klein did not have more than just seven years to create a fascinating oeuvre. His ultramarine blue monochrome paintings, his sponge relief and sculptural works, his Anthropometries (body pictures) and his legendary “Leap Into the Void" made him famous. His oeuvre, however, extends far beyond these well-known works. Yves Klein, who pioneered new trends such as action art or concept art and was a co-founder of French Nouveau Re'alisme, kept experimenting with transitory or short-lived materials. For his Fire Paintings, he used a flame thrower to scorch figurations into canvas or cardboard. The pictures that he called “Cosmogonies" were exposed to rain.

Yves Klein began to work on immaterial architecture between 1956 and 1959 when he was commissioned to design the walls of the foyer of the new Musiktheater im Revier (MiR) in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, under the architectural supervision of Werner Ruhnau. His blue sponge relief pictures are visible from afar through the large glass facade and have become an identity mark of the Gelsenkirchen cityscape. From 1959, Yves Klein began making “Air Architecture"-drawings together with architect Claude Parent.

What Yves Klein developed was not only a revolutionary architectural position that virtually negated object nature, but mainly a social project. Based on the assumption that, despite all progress in space research, the Earth would continue to be the sole sphere of human living in the future, he wanted to create an ideal environment for the humans on this planet. He insisted that “the conquest of space will indeed be achieved by restoring the legendary Eden, which will allow Man to be impregnated with sensibility in space."
Klein envisioned the city of the future as spanned by an immaterial air roof providing for permanent circulation of air and offering protection from sunlight and rain. Transparent walls, roofs, and even furniture were to be created from compressed air. Facilities such as kitchens, bathrooms, and storage would be accommodated in underground basements.

The urbanites would be living in open spaces without partitioned rooms or boundary between inside and out. Inspired by the idea of an unlimited availability of energy resources, Klein created architectural projects that were in sharp contrast to what was being built at that time in the new French satellite cities. Yves Klein was reputed to be a visionary in his lifetime already. His work, which operates at the interface to science, has been considered as seminal until today.

The MAK Gallery exhibition design is the work of guest curator Francois Perrin. Following Klein’s architectural tenets, Perrin developed a showcase system that is reduced to bare essentials and responds to the specific spatial situation of the MAK Gallery.

Lecture
Francois Perrin: Air Architecture
Tuesday, 30.5., 7.00pm
MAK Lecture Hall,
Weiskirchnerstrasse 3, 1010 Vienna

The Movies of Yves Klein
17 short films, b/w and color, silent, 81 min., 1953-1962, 16 or 35 mm.
Sunday, 4.6.2006, 3.00pm
MAK Lecture Hall,
Weiskirchnerstrasse 3, 1010 Vienna

Catalogue YVES KLEIN. Air Architecture, edited by Peter Noever and Francois Perrin, with contributions by Julie Carson, Yves Klein, Sylve're Lotringer and Mark Wigley, English, 144 pages, MAK Center/Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004,
EUR 24,80 [MAK Shop]

Opening Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 8:00 p.m.

MAK Gallery
MAK, Stubenring 5, A-1010 Vienna
Opening hours
Tue (MAK NITE(c)) 10.00 a.m.-midnight
Wed-Sun 10.00 a.m.-6.00 p.m., Mon closed

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