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Tate Liverpool + RIBA North Exhibition

Yves Klein

21 October 2016 – 5 March 2017

Yves Klein, IKB 79 1959. Tate. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025.

Discover one of the most influential figures of the post-war era

Yves Klein’s (1928-1962) career was marked by extraordinary creativity.  His bold attitude to art and life influenced later generations of artists and foresaw important artistic movements including pop, conceptual, installation and performance art. Presenting around 40 major works the exhibition throws fresh light on his artistic practice.

Embracing painting, sculpture, performance, theatre, music, film, architecture and judo, Klein took the European art world by storm.  Klein’s vision was to express absolute immateriality and infinite space through pure colour.  The artist is perhaps best known for his own invented colour, International Klein Blue (IKB) used across many of his works.

This exhibition brings together major works never before seen in the UK alongside his Anthropometry paintings, Fire Paintings – created using a flame throwers as well as sculptures, planetary-reliefs, photographs and pure-colour monochrome paintings.

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TateShots: Yves Klein - Anthropometries

Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry, (ANT 84) 1960

Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry, (ANT 84) 1960 © Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris / DACS, London, 2016

Yves Klein, The Dream of Fire c.1961

Harry Shunk, 1924-2006 and János Kender, 1938–2009 Yves Klein, The Dream of Fire c.1961 Harry Shunk and Shunk-Kender photographs. Artistic action by Yves Klein © Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris / DACS, London, 2016. Collaboration Harry Shunk and János Kender. Photograph: Shunk-Kender © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2014.R.20)

Yves Klein realising Fire Painting 1961

Yves Klein realising Fire Painting 1961 © Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris / DACS, London, 2016. Centre Pompidou-Mnam/Cci-Bibliothèque Kandinsky-Fonds Vera Cardot Pierre Joly. 


Tate Liverpool + RIBA North

Mann Island
Liverpool L3 1BP
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Dates

21 October 2016 – 5 March 2017

Sponsored by

Edge Hill University

Supported by

Tate Liverpool Members

Partners

Bozar

*****

I’ve got the blues and it’s beautiful

The Guardian
****

The Peter Pan of conceptual art

The Telegraph

Klein was a joker, a thinker and an extreme provocateur

The Observer

His work can sometimes root you to the floor with its beauty

The Times

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Find out more

  • Artist

    Yves Klein

    1928–1962
  • Artwork

    IKB 79

    Yves Klein
    1959
Artwork
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