“At present, I am particularly excited by 'bad taste'. I have the deep feeling that there exists in the very essence of bad taste a power capable of creating those things situated far beyond what is traditionally termed 'The Work of Art'. I wish to play with human feeling, with its 'morbidity' in a cold and ferocious manner. Only very recently I have become a sort of gravedigger of art (oddly enough, I am using the very terms of my enemies). Some of my latest works have been coffins and tombs. During the same time I succeeded in painting with fire, using particularly powerful and searing gas flames, some of them measuring three to four meters high. I use these to bathe the surface of the painting in such a way that it registered the spontaneous trace of fire.”
“Blue has no dimensions, it is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colours are not. They are pre-psychological expanses, red, for example, presupposing a site radiating heat.. .All colours arouse spec...”
Yves Klein
“..the thinking man is no longer the center of the universe, but the universe is the center of the man [referring to collaborations between artists, in which Klein was involved several times]. We shall...”
Yves Klein
“In 1946, when I was still an adolescent, I went and signed my name on the other side of the sky during a fantastic 'realistico-imaginary' voyage.”
Yves Klein
“It was in 1947 that the idea of a conscious monochrome vision came to me.. .Pure, existential space was regularly winking at me, each time in a more impressive manner, and this sensation of total free...”
Yves Klein
“To project my mark outside myself – but I did it! [walking in the streets of Venice Klein wore a shirt imprinted with the marks of his own hands and feet].. .I found myself confronting everything that...”
Yves Klein