Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Born in 1928, Yves Klein was a French artist most recognized for his colour field paintings and committment to the colour blue. Klein began to paint in the 1940s and formulate his first monochromatic theories which resulted in stark canvases of yellow, pink, orange, red, and green. However, in 1957 he abandoned the use of other colours in favour of the colour blue with the exhibition Proposition Monochrome: Blue Epoch. The exhibition comprised of eleven identical blue canvases made use of a colour that he and a chemist developed called the 'International Klein Blue'. The colour, made from pure colour pigments and a binding medium, was thought by Klein to evoke the boundlessness and immateriality of his utopian view of the world. As well as using conventional methods of painting, Klein also had naked women covered in blue paint drag their bodies across a surface to create a series of works called Anthropometries. He is considered an important figure in Post-War art as his work represents a response to the monochrome style present in the twentieth century. His work is most-notably included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Klein died in Paris of a heart attack in 1962.
Yves KleinTable Monopink™, 1961/1963 Rose madder pigment, glass, plexiglass and steel
Yves KleinUntitled Blue Sponge Sculpture (SE 322), c. 1961 Dry pigment and synthetic resin on natural sponge
Yves KleinBlue Table, 1961 International Klein Blue pigment, glass, plexiglass and steel
Related Press Yves Klein artworks electrify Blenheim Palace’s baroque interiors Wallpaper* : 23 July 2018 He’s a household name yet ‘most people do not know anything about Yves Klein’, says Daniel Moquay, director of the late French artist’s estate, and husband of Klein’s widow, Rotraut. Moquay has helped to coordinate an exhibition on Klein – who would have been 90 this year – taking place in the spectacular settings of Blenheim Palace.
Related Press An Ode to an Alley Modern Magazine : 5 January 2017 In Paris, a short, narrow alley in the fifteenth arrondissement known as Impasse Ronsin became a hub for some of the most prominent artists of the twentieth century, including Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, Yves Klein, Les Lalanne, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Jean Tinguely, among others. An exhibition, Impasse Ronsin, at the Paul Kasmin Gallery on...
Related Press The woman who painted her body for artist Yves Klein BBC : 23 October 2016 It has come to be seen as one of the landmark events in the history of performance art. The evening was conducted by French artist Yves Klein, who wore a black dinner jacket and white bow tie for the occasion, and who gave us a radically different type of nude in art. But there has been criticism of the way Klein used young women - dubbed...
Related Press At The Guggenheim, An Orb By Otto Piene Ascends Brooke Bobb for T Magazine Blogs / 4 November 2014 : 30 November 2014 The imposing rotunda inside the Guggenheim museum in New York has just become a lot more striking thanks to Otto Piene's "White Balloon" installation, on display for only three days. Specially installed to coincide with this year's Guggenheim International Gala, sponsored by Christian Dior, it dovetails with a longer exhibition: the first...
