The invisible artwork and receipt were created by French artist Yves Klein, who turned out to be a man well ahead of his time. In a sense, you could say he dabbled in NFTs before NFTs were cool (or even existed). And since computers still took up entire buildings when he achieved fame in the mid-20th-century, the notion of selling an artistic concept that could never be physically (let alone digitally) possessed proved highly innovative and provocative.
After all, owning NFTs comes with bragging rights, and the same can be said of the imaginative zones “crafted” by Klein. Here’s what you need to know about the million-dollar auction and the art behind it.
An Artist With an Invisible Vision
Art collectors generally want to leave auctions with the pieces they bid on in hand (or at least in transit with a hefty dose of insurance). But for those who appreciate the work of Yves Klein, the masterpieces came in the form of the sales transaction itself.
Klein created an innovative and entirely imaginative series known as Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility. The series included an artist’s book and a performance by Klein with each receipt. He created eight of these so-called “zones” from 1959 until his death on June 6, 1962. If you’re wondering how Klein verified the existence of invisible artwork, you’re far from alone. Interestingly, he used a ritualized method.
Verifying the Unverifiable
Each time an art collector bought one of Klein’s imaginary zones, the artist went through an elaborate ritual with the buyer. Consider it performance art. He gifted the recipient with a receipt for the work, a verification of the invisible piece’s existence. It was unusual, but some people dug the idea, especially in the increasingly experimental ’60s.
After purchasing one of Klein’s works, buyers followed the “Ritual Rules.” These rules included choosing one of two paths. One, the collector could pay the amount Klein asked for the artwork in gold and keep the receipt. This choice meant they didn’t receive the immaterial artwork’s value. Two, they could pay in gold and burn the receipt. Klein would then throw half the gold in the Seine River, resulting in a successful “exchange” of the authentic immaterial value.
Yves Klein, “Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle” (The Ritual for a Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) with Dino Buzzati, Seine, Paris, 1962 January. Copyright J. Paul Getty Trust.
Discovering the Void
Was there an ultimate point to the ritual? According to Klein, the performance communicated art’s incalculable, indefinable value. But the implications of the ritual ran even deeper. During his career, he had become obsessed with the concept of the void, which he translated through his imagination into priceless immaterial zones.
He wrote, “Finding it unacceptable to sell these immaterial zones for money, I insisted in exchange for the highest quality of the immaterial, the highest quality of material payment — a bar of pure gold.” This would lead some in the press to accuse Klein of selling little more than air.
But not everyone saw it this way. According to Michael Blankfort, a Hollywood writer who purchased one of Klein’s imaginary zones, “No other experience in art [could] equal the depth of feeling of [the sale ceremony]. It evoked in me a shock of self-recognition and an explosion of awareness of time and space.”
As with all art, the beauty and worth of Klein’s invisible artworks remain in the eye of the beholder. But the fact is, few receipts for his artwork survived because most people burned theirs. This either makes Klein one of the coolest concept artists of the 20th century or one of the best receipt marketers in history as the Sotheby’s auction attests.
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
