In his “Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,” Klein sold empty space (the Immaterial Zone) for various amounts to collectors, who were presented with a receipt. Instructing the buyers to burn their receipts, Klein returned half of this gold and threw the rest into the river Seine, destroying both the immaterial “artwork” along with its material value. Read More We provide art lovers and art collectors with one of the best places on the planet to discover modern and contemporary art. Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle: | | ||| | A cheque used to certify the purchase of a |Zone de Se... World Heritage Encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most definitive collection ever assembled. Before Maurizio Cattelan's Banana, There Was Yves Klein's Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle | Widewalls. Klein sold “ownership” of a “Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility” to various buyers in 1962, cashing their cheques and exchanging them for several ounces of gold leaf. In 1959, Yves Klein produced a project called Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility, considered as a pioneering art piece that criticized the art system. In 1959, Yves Klein produced a project called Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility, considered as a pioneering art piece that criticized the art system. In 1959, Yves Klein produced a project called Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility, considered as a pioneering art piece that criticized the … The ritual would be performed in the presence of an ar… His mother, Marie, was a … Blue, the colour of sensibility, is in fact just one of the hues Klein chose for the Monochromes and his other more mature …

Yves Klein was born 2 April 1928, in Nice, France – the child of two artists. To complete the transaction, Klein exchanged the purchase amount for gold leaf, which he tossed into the Seine River. Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle (Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility) is an artist's book and performance by the French artist Yves Klein. For a 1958 exhibition entitled The Specialisation of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilised Pictorial Sensibility, The Void – shortened, thankfully, to The Void – Yves Klein exhibited nothing. The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking the form of a cheque, in exchange for gold; if the buyer wished, the piece could then be completed in an elaborate ritual in which the buyer would burn the cheque, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the Seine. Body, Colour, Immaterial offers an opportunity to reinterpret Klein’s work, leading off from this declaration, by positioning the Blue Monochromes in a more complete context, as the first stage in a body of work that uses a foothold in the visible to cross the threshold into the invisible.