天空才是极限

Oh Mamy Mamy blue

YVES KLEIN was lounging on a beach with some friends in 1947 when he had his big artistic breakthrough, so the story goes. Born in Nice to painter parents, the 19-year-old Klein gazed up at the sky and imagined signing his name near the clouds. “The blue sky is my first artwork,” he declared, neatly summing up his ambitions to breach the ordinary boundaries of art; no mean feat in post-war Europe.

生于尼斯、父母皆为画家的克莱因据说是在1947年这一年有了艺术上的重大突破，当时他正和几个朋友躺在沙滩上休息。19岁的克莱因注视着天空，想象在云朵旁边签上他的名字。他曾宣布，“蓝天是我的第一个作品，” 干净利落地总结了他试图突破艺术的寻常界限的雄心；这在战后欧洲是了不起的事。

Besides revealing Klein’s grand expectations for himself, this anecdote helps to illustrate why he is still so difficult to classify. A painter who bemoaned the limitations of paint, he tried to convey something immaterial in his work, to lend shape to the invisible. He was a visionary, a bridge between representational art and the conceptual kind, with ideas about revolutionising music, theatre, architecture and art. But he was also a charismatic showman with a touch of the charlatan about him, and he loved a good spectacle.

这则掌故不仅透露出克莱因对自己的远大期望，还有助于解释他为什么仍然如此难被归类。作为一个对绘画的局限性表达过不满的画家，他试图在作品中传达无形，试图把有形借给无形。他是看得到未来的人，他是具像艺术和概念艺术之间的一座桥，他的革命性理念涵盖音乐、电影、建筑和艺术。但是他同时也是一个富有魅力的表演家，身上带着一点江湖术士气，而且他喜欢让人来劲的场面。

In an early show at a Paris gallery, for example, Klein emptied the space, painted it white and announced that he was exhibiting his “sensibility”. For his later “Anthropométrie” series, an orchestra played his one-chord “Monotone Symphonie” while the artist, dressed in evening tails and white gloves, directed a group of naked women to smear themselves with the blue pigment he patented as “International Klein Blue” and roll about on canvas or cardboard. (A large work from this series sold at Christie’s in New York earlier this month for $12.4m.)

比如，在一家巴黎画廊的某次早间展览中，克莱因将空间清空，然后在四壁刷上白色，并且宣布他正在展出他的“感性”。在他后期的“人体测量学”系列中，一边是乐队演奏着他的单和弦“单调交响乐”，一边是克莱因穿着晚会上的燕尾服，带着白手套，指挥一群裸女用他申请了专利、叫作“克莱因蓝”的蓝色涂料在身上随意涂抹，然后在帆布或硬纸板上翻滚。（一副出自这个系列的大幅作品本月初在在纽约佳士得拍卖会中以1.24千万美元的价格售出）。

“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” is the first comprehensive re-examination of his work in America in nearly 30 years. Organised by the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC (where it is now on view), and the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis (where it moves next), it includes around 200 paintings, drawings, films and ephemera, selected from the many hundreds Klein left behind when he died of a heart attack in 1962, aged 34. His seven-year body of work is sprawled yet distinctive, particularly given the many works coated in his personal hue of blue.

“伊夫·克莱因：虚无，力量”是将近30年来美国首次全面重新回顾他的作品。此次展览由华盛顿的赫希洪博物馆（现在正在此处展览）和明尼阿波利斯的沃克艺术中心（展览的下一站）联合组织，包括200件左右的绘画作品、电影胶片和纪念物品，选自克莱因死后留下的上百件遗物（克莱因在1962年由于心脏病去世，年仅34岁）。七年的创作生涯，他留下了大量作品，虽种类繁杂，却特色鲜明，尤其要知道这些作品中的很多都穿上了属于他个人的蓝色外衣。

The timing of the show is serendipitous. Though this exhibition has been in the works since 2003, Klein has been in the headlines lately for breaking records at auction. “I don’t always understand the market,” says Kerry Brougher, the deputy director and chief curator of the Hirshhorn, “but Klein has a position in art history that isn’t going away.”

这次展览纯属是机缘使然。尽管这些作品从2003年就已经在展出了，但是克莱因只是最近才上了头版，因为他在拍卖会创了记录。“我并不总是很懂市场”，赫希洪博物馆的副馆长和首席策展人克里·布罗说，“但是克莱因在艺术史上的位置是不会消失的。”

Yet organising a retrospective of Klein’s work is tricky, as his artistic evolution lacks a clear narrative. He wanted to free painting from representation, and free art from expectations, but this was not without contradictions. At times Klein comes across as wry and savvy, such as with his first self-published book, “Yves Peintures”, a collection of “reproductions” that seems to poke fun at the whole idea of an artist catalogue. At others he seems like a bit of a loon, such as in his published correspondence with Philip Johnson, an American architect who handled Klein with impressive patience.

但是组织克莱因作品的回顾展却是件棘手的事，因为他的艺术演进缺少一个明晰的表述。他想将绘画从具像的表现方式中解脱出来，想让艺术走出创作前的预期，但是他并不是没有自相矛盾想法。有时，克莱因给人的感觉是充满讽刺式的幽默和对艺术的悟性，就像他在自行出版的第一本书《伊夫的画》中表现出的那样，这是一本“复制品”集，似乎是对“艺术家作品集”这类书的整体想法的嘲讽。在其它方面，他似乎有点像傻瓜，比如他在与美国建筑师菲利普·约翰逊的通信中暴露的那样，后者在与他交流的过程中表现出了超强的耐心。两人的通信已公开出版。

The show moves chronologically, from his earliest monochromatic canvasses to his sponges, “Anthropométries” and fire paintings. The curators have limited the wall text to Klein’s own observations. (These don’t always serve him well, as one example shows: “All facts that are contradictory are genuine principles of universal explanation.”) Klein’s most radical work came early on. The strongest room of the show is one filled completely with his trademark blue monochromes. The colour feels a little heavy for an ethereal rendering of sky and sea, as Klein had envisioned. Yet these paintings are remarkable to look at, and a gallery full of their throbbing colour delivers a curious conceptual wallop. The room’s security guard divulges that she has to keep visitors from plunging their hands into the dry pigment. Klein, the showman and the artist, would surely have appreciated that people would try to steal a touch.更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

此次展出的作品按年代排序，从他最早的单色油画到他的海绵画、“人体测量学”和火画。策展人把墙上的文字限定于克莱因自己的观察所得。（但是这些并不总是符合他对艺术的理解，比这个例子：“所有矛盾的事实是统一解释的真正原则。”）克莱因最具创新性的作品出自其创作早期。此次展出中最震撼的展室是全部被他标志性的单色蓝所占据的那一间。相对于画作所要传达的轻盈的主题，室内的颜色感觉有些重，因为克莱因想象的是蓝天和大海。但是这些画仍然值得一看，而且被它们那悸动的颜色所填满的画廊带来的是一种奇妙的概念冲击力。 展室的保安透露说，她必须防止参观者猛然把手伸到干燥的颜料上。既是表演者又是艺术家的克莱因，如果能听到说人们会很想偷摸一下他的作品，一定会很高兴。

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“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” is at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, until September 12th. It will be at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis from October 2nd until February 13th 2011.

“伊夫·克莱因：虚无，力量”正在华盛顿的赫希洪博物馆展出，展览结束日期是9月12日。明尼阿波利斯的沃克艺术中心是展览的下一站，时间从10月2日至2011年2月13日。