Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
In 1957, I was walking past a gallery in Düsseldorf when I saw a monochrome blue painting in the window. I stopped and stood in front of him. I was deeply moved by the way the artist could evoke something immaterial, spiritual, through color. He took me to heaven and made me think about our galaxy, where we are in the universe.
It wasn’t until a year later that I met the artist who painted it. He was working in Nice, France, as an au pair for artist Arman and his family. One night when he and his wife were out, I heard someone at the front door say it was Yves Klein and that he wanted to see Arman. After having seen the exhibition in Düsseldorf, I admired it. I had imagined what it would be like, what his spirit would be like and what he would look like. But I didn’t let him in. He knew he shouldn’t let anyone in. I told him to come back the next day. When he returned, I saw a handsome man with a charming smile and a beautiful presence. He touched my heart.
Later he invited me to see his studio in Haut-de-Cagnes. She was working in a monochrome. I sat and watched him paint; He would come to talk to me and then go back to painting. We listen to music. I think he saw that I understood it. I had a good foundation through my brother, Günther Uecker, who was one of the three founders of the group Zero, a collective of artists interested in light and movement.
Before me, the women around Yves used to say, “Oh, that blue you always have,” a little mockingly and a little admiringly. They didn’t really understand how important he was as an artist. For me he was at the top of the mountain. I thought he was simply divine: the best, the highest. He had enormous respect for him. There was a kind of unity between us, an osmosis. We couldn’t talk but we would understand things at the same time or think the same thing. It was so easy. I lived with him for four years before he died in 1962, at the age of 34, but I feel that it was a life of a hundred years because it was very full, very rich.
Yves was a very disciplined man. I think he came out of his judo upbringing in Japan. He taught me to put my shoes together and in one place, so you don’t go to bed and just throw your shoes away. You cling to a certain discipline, a little order. He had a reputation for doing things repeatedly because he wanted to find perfection. Being with Yves was like when you go to the theater and a really good actor comes on stage but he doesn’t do anything, he’s just there. You feel this presence. He emerged from his understanding of the immaterial: what the body can express without doing too much. It is a kind of spirituality.
When he worked, Yves played symphonies by Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. It was almost like a ceremony, when the models were covered in blue paint and worked with it on the floor. Sometimes I see music in paintings, as in ANT 77with its movement from side to side, almost in rhythm with the music being played.
Experiencing your monotonous symphony for the first time in 1958 it was an emotional event for me. It is an orchestral performance of a single chord, D major, for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence. What I heard was so powerful that I wish I could listen to it over and over again. And when you listen to the silence after the music, you really notice how rich and full the silence can be. You need this time to capture the resonance of the symphony, to relive it. It’s so special. And people feel it, they don’t try to get up and leave. They are very respectful. It will be wonderful to hear him again in New York for this new exhibition. There is always something very spiritual about the experience.
I hope a new generation will be happy to see the exhibition: it will be extraordinary to see all the different pieces, but I don’t want to reveal the details of the work. It’s up to visitors to find out. You need to be with them to feel their presence. That’s when you feel it in your heart. It goes beyond thought, beyond the brain. I think it’s very important to define the feelings you get from each piece. Don’t go and look at the images one after another. That doesn’t do anything to you. You need time. It’s like a person: if you want to feel the presence of a person, what they really are like, you have to spend some time with them. To feel what kind of person he is.
Yves Klein and the Tangible World will be at Lévy Gorvy Dayan until May 25. levygorvydayan.com
As he told Baya Simons