Co-organized by the Hirshhorn and Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, “Yves Klein” is huge — about 200 works are on display, and together they present a comprehensive exploration of Klein’s career.

“Klein came at a moment when Europe was in the aftermath of war, and many artists were still digesting that,” says exhibition curator Kerry Brougher. “Klein suddenly appeared on the scene as a leader … and he had a new kind of approach that seemed so much more utopian and positive in spirit.”

Brougher says that Klein “was creating the sense that things would move forward,” and he “foreshadowed what would develop with conceptual art and installation art.”

The retrospective begins with Klein’s monochrome paintings — including those in his signature color, International Klein Blue — and leads into the Anthropometries, among his best-known works. In them, nude female models coated themselves in International Klein Blue paint and rolled onto sheets of paper to make prints with their bodies. Klein tried to record human energy with this series, and an accompanying video shows how he created the pieces.

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Klein’s emphasis on the color blue — and its associations with sky and water — is clear throughout the exhibit, but other elements crop up as well. His fire paintings, in which he used fire alone or fire combined with paint, are golden studies of creation and destruction.

» Hirshhorn Museum, 7th Street & Independence Ave. SW; through Sept. 12, free; 202-633-1000. (L’Enfant Plaza)

Written by Express contributor Amy Cavanaugh
Photo courtesy Lee Stralsworth/Hirshhorn Museum

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