Yesterday afternoon I made a special trip to the National Gallery of Art in
Washington DC, hoping that they would show the scheduled four hours of
documentaries on art in the revised order printed on their website. I had
decided in advance that I only wanted to witness Francois Levy-Kuentz's
documentary on Yves Klein ("La Revolution Bleue", 2006, 52 minutes). This
visual artist had intrigued me for years, but I had a rather sketchy
perspective on him. My hope was that this film might include some archival
footage, never knowing that Klein had arranged for filmic documentation of
the major moves in his life/career. What a dazzling figure--way beyond
what I had imagined. As I was leaving the museum, a fellow spectator asked
me whether the film documented an actual person or whether an imaginary
being had been concocted by the filmmaker. There's also otherwise
unavailable footage of Pierre Restany and the Nouveaux Realistes (Arman,
Jean Tinguely, Daniel Spoerri, Cesar, and Francois Dufrene [performing
sound poetry]). In fact, I had not known that Yves Klein had cofounded
this vanguard movement with the critic Restany in 1960. Others involved
(but not imaged in the film) included Martial Raysse, Mimmo Rotella, then
Niki de Saint Phalle, and last but not least, Christo joined the group in
1963. I'm tempted to offer comparisons to literary manifestations which
emerged in 1960, but let me just say that many of the figures associated
with Oulipo are equally fresh and inventive.
"La Revolution Bleue" is available on DVD if you don't want to wait until
it's screened within a visual art context in your geographic range. My
highest recommendation:
http://www.artfifa.com/index.php?option=com_film&task=view&id=699&Itemid=51
<http://www.boutiquesdemusees.fr/en/shop/products/details/36-dvd-video-yves-
klein-la-revolution-bleue.html>
Barry Alpert
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