Yves Klein, Italy

On 2 January 1957, the Yves Klein. Proposte monocrome, epoca Blu exhibition was inaugurated at the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan. These eleven monochrome paintings of the same deep ultramarine blue, all rigorously identical, officially marked the start of Yves Klein's « blue period » and his engagement with monochromes. This exhibition - now historic - initiated fertile connections between the artist and the Italian scene, which was flourishing at that time.

From Yves Klein's first journey hitchhiking across all of Italy to his last secret journey to Cascia, via Venice, Milan, and Rome, this book retraces a history of art of the 1950s and 1960s, spanning France and Italy, and featuring as its protagonists Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, and the Arte Nucleare group; Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, and the Azimuth constellation; the gallerists Guido Le Noci and Peppino Palazzoli; and writer Dino Buzzati.

After Yves Klein USA, Yves Klein Germany, and Yves Klein Japan, this fourth travel album, prepared in association with the Yves Klein Archives, offers an original view of the artist and his relationship with Italy, through an extraordinary selection of archival materials, photographs, and correspondence - most of which appear here for the first time - and is enlightened by essays from Cecilia Braschi and Bruno Corà, as well as testimonies from Rotraut Klein-Moquay and Elena Palumbo Mosca.