Yves Klein: Expressing the Immaterial

Yves Klein’s radical approach to art in the late 1950s culminated in an exhibition that defied the expectations of both viewers and institutions.

Held in April 1958, the show featured an entirely empty gallery—no objects, no images—yet was intended as anything but a void. Although later dubbed the “exhibition of the void,” a title Klein himself did not choose, the event was conceived as a manifestation of pure presence: a space charged with an invisible, affective atmosphere. Through what he called the “immaterialisation of the painting,” Klein aimed to express the essence of art—a radiant, immaterial pictorial sensibility. This idea soon extended into ritualistic transactions, where collectors exchanged large sums of money for symbolic “zones” of this invisible energy.

From 1957 until his early death in 1962, Klein persistently developed this immaterial vision. Simultaneously, he created his Anthropometries by directing nude female models to imprint their paint-covered bodies onto canvases, treating them as “living brushes.” While these two strands—one conceptual, one corporeal—may appear contradictory, this essay proposes they are deeply intertwined. Drawing on the Christian mystery of the Incarnation, Klein’s work reveals a unified concern with how the immaterial can become manifest, how presence can be felt beyond visibility.