Yves Klein
La Vénus d'Alexandrie
1962/1982
IKB pigment on plaster. Height 70 cm. Artist's signet and numeration on left leg. Edition label and numeration on the underside of the base. Numbered 49/300 (+ 50 H.C. + 3). Edition adapted from a design by the artist from 1962. Edition Galerie Bonnier (1982), Geneva. - Minor traces of ages.
The present work by Yves Klein was inspired by the famous Venus de Milo (also known as the Roman Aphrodite of Milos). Alongside the Laocoon group and the Nike of Samothrace, the statue is one of the most famous examples of Hellenistic art and considered to embody the ideal of female beauty. Despite the reduction to the torso as well as the rotation of the body, the figurative sculpture of the antique representation is retained in the classical contrapost. Furthermore, Klein, who coloured the cast with his patented International Klein Blue (I.K.B.), gives it a powdery, almost organic surface. By recourse to a historical icon, which the artist impregnates with his identifying colour, Klein not only refers back to art history, but in addition refers to his own artistic significance. Moreover, the torso of Venus seems to refer to incisive aspects of Klein's oeuvre: there is no denying the obvious relationship between the headless sculpture and Klein's Anthropometries.
Catalogue Raisonné
Ledeur S 41
Provenance
Private collection, North Germany
Exhibitions
Lugano 2009 (Museo d'Arte della Città di Lugano), Yves Klein, exhib.cat., p.180 with colour illus. (different example)
Nizza 2000/2001 (Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain), Yves Klein, La vie, la vie elle-même qui est l'art absolu, exhib.cat., p.182 with colour illus. (different example)
Oslo 1997 (The National Museum of Contemporary Art), Yves Klein, exhib.cat.no.66, p.79 with colour illus. (different example)
Cologne 1994/1995 (Museum Ludwig), Düsseldorf (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen), London 1995 (Hayward Gallery), Madrid (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía), Yves Klein, exhib.cat.no.111, p.247 with colour illus. (different example)
Paris 1983 (Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne) Yves Klein, exhib.cat., p.424 (different example)