blue turns to.... yellow

in 1964 the rolling stones 'december's children' breathed new life into my stereo.

'Then blue turns to grey
And try as you may
You just don't feel good
You don't feel alright'- from their song 'blue turns to grey'

little did they know they may have been singing the blues of french artist yves klein. yves will forever be associated with the color cobalt blue. he painted, sculpted, and seemed to inhabit the hue. i just learned today that yves also loved yellow!

his first two shows of oil paintings, (at the Club des Solitaires, Paris, October 1955 and at Gallery Colette Allendy, February 1956) displayed orange, yellow, red, pink and blue monochromes. these exhibits deeply disappointed klein, as people went from painting to painting, linking them together as a sort of mosaic.
from the reactions of the audience, he realized that viewers thought his various, uniformly colored canvases amounted to a new kind of bright, abstract interior decoration. shocked at this misunderstanding, klein knew a further and decisive step in the direction of monochrome art would have to be taken. from that time onwards he would concentrate on one single, primary color alone: blue.

the artist had one serious reaction. no wonder courtney hid all the 'nirvana' reviews from kurt. if you care to silence the outside world for awhile you can enter the visual calmness of this artist on youtube: Yves - le Monochrome - Part 1 and Part 2.

photos: the art/the artist torching the art into being