On April 28, 1958, Yves Klein (1928–1962) invited the Parisian public to a spectacular opening at Galerie Iris Clert. Klein painted the exterior windows of the gallery blue, framed the entrance with blue curtains, and even gave out blue cocktails to visitors. Originally titled “The specialization of sensibility in the raw material state of stabilized pictorial sensibility,” this sensational event is better known as Le Vide (The Void). As implied by this secondary title, Klein emptied the gallery and painted the interior white to create what he referred to as “an ambiance, a genuine pictorial climate, and therefore, an invisible one” (Yves Klein, 1982). Just as Paik’s Zen for Film, John Cage’s 4’33”, and Robert Rauschenberg’s White Painting engage with materiality of the medium, Klein’s void sought to give form to an “immaterial painterly sensibility.” Thus, in Klein’s empty gallery, the activities of the visitors, framed by chance operations and dependent on time spent on this unusual engagement became the work on display. —CA

Image: Photographed by Charles Wilp. © bpk/Charles Wilp/Art Resource, NY. © Yves Klein 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York /ADAGP, Paris.