Works by French artist Yves Klein are being shown in the Museum of Modern Art in Nice, his native town, until September 4th 2000. Born into a family of painters in this French Riviera resort in 1928, Klein both excelled as a judo specialist and artist. However what attracted him first was judo and mysticism that led him to go to Japan during 18 months.
In 1983, the first retrospective of his work held at the Pompidou Museum in Paris appeared as an hymn to his personality and his perception of space. Then in 1995 a roving exhibition centered on his sense of philosophy and life. Now in Nice, visitors are offered a stronger insight on life seen as absolute art.
Klein had a very short career during which he expressed his poetry, dreams and visions, which led him to produce monochrome paintings. His main objective, based on the idea of man's positive evolution, was to float in space and one must admit he somewhat fulfilled his dream via his many monochrome works and his particular blue, now called Klein's blue, which he invented and registered as a trade-mark in 1960 under the IKB (International Klein Blue) label, using this colour with sponges, covering nude bodies with it as well as statues or objects, transforming women into living brushes and thus promoting another significant art movement.
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