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Deep blue pigment first mixed by the French artist Yves Klein From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yves Klein"International Klein Blue" (IKB) is a process registered in France on 19 May 1960 at the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI) under Soleau envelope no. 63471 by the French artist Yves Klein. It combines ultramarine blue pigment with a very specific binder created with the help of a chemist.
By law, no one can appropriate a colour. IKB, also called Klein Blue does not refer to a shade of blue but to this unique combination created by Yves Klein and often considered an artistic act in the sense of conceptual art.
Yves Klein, IKB, Bleu Klein and Klein Blue are registered trademarks protecting the artist's name and work.
International Klein Blue (IKB) was developed by Yves Klein in collaboration with Edouard Adam, a Parisian art paint supplier whose shop is still in business on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet in Montparnasse.[1] IKB uses a matte, synthetic resin binder which suspends the color and allows the pigment to maintain as much of its original qualities and intensity of color as possible.[2] The synthetic resin used in the binder is a polyvinyl acetate developed and marketed at the time under the name Rhodopas M or M60A by the French pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc.[3] Adam still sells the binder under the name "Médium Adam 25".[1]
In May 1960, Klein deposited a Soleau envelope, registering the paint formula under the name International Klein Blue (IKB) at the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI),[2] but he never patented IKB. Only valid under French law, a Soleau envelope registers the date of invention, according to the depositor, prior to any legal patent application. The copy held by the INPI was destroyed in 1965. Klein's own copy, which the INPI returned to him duly stamped, still exists.[4]
In March 1960, Klein patented a method by which he was able to distance himself from the physical creation of his paintings by remotely directing models covered in the color.[5]
Although Klein had worked with blue extensively in his earlier career, it was not until 1958 that he used it as the central component of a piece (the color effectively becoming the art). Klein embarked on a series of monochromatic works using IKB as the central theme. These included performance art where Klein painted models' naked bodies and had them walk, roll and sprawl upon blank canvases as well as more conventional single-color canvases.[6] Six sculptures by Klein in the Musiktheater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are executed in IKB. One artwork he made is the Anthropometrie.
In the original performance of Klein's Monotone-Silence Symphony in 1960, three naked models on stage were painted with International Klein Blue body paint during the performance, and left imprints of their bodies on canvas.[7][8]
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