Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), special correspondent.
From the outset, the proposition is pretty: “the overwhelming power of color”. The promise of total immersion in a bath of light, a dive without reference points into the world of pigment, entry into a world that is usually difficult to touch. A hanging proposal – as noted – from Hélène Guenin, director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Mamac), and Aymeric Jeudy, director of the Matisse Museum. Two places in Nice that combine intelligently.
With Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Yves Klein (1928-1962), there was no need to look for affinities for too long. When he begins his vast mural composition Dance (1930-1933), commissioned by Albert Barnes, the master of Fauvism found himself confronted with a new dimension, that of immensity, of the absence of limits.
To avoid drowning, he has this brilliant dazzlingness: cutting out shapes in flat areas of color. Much later, lying on the (hard) pebbles of the Nice beach, contemplating the clear and perfect blue sky, without a cloud, Yves Klein began to dream without shame: “I sign my name on the back of the sky, I pass to the other side of the sky. »
On the side of sculpture and ancient works
We are ready to go through the looking glass and observe the five stations of the exhibition, the first of which is “Primitive Skies, Modern Architecture”. Like a Klein-d’oeil of Matisse, he realizes the sponge reliefs (1958-1959) for the Gelsenkirchen Opera Theater. The tool becomes material. The more he advances, the more his works will resonate with those of the last Matissian period.
We are “Beyond the motif”, second stage of the journey. Klein’s monochromes knock on the door of cut-out gouache paper elements not used in his works by Matisse, patchwork like an unintelligible rebus. THE Untitled blue monochrome (IKB Godet) from 1958, dazzles. THE Triptych de Krefeld (1961), blue, pink and gold, captivates.
Here we are in the “Modernism and tradition” section. Klein explains: “Never, through line, have we been able to create a fourth, fifth or any other dimension in painting; only color can attempt to achieve this feat. » But, like Matisse, he will look at sculpture and ancient works. He also finds the trace of the dying slave by Michelangelo. Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 84)1960, where the models are transformed into “living brushes”, challenges the Not blue IV (1952), exceptionally visible.
There, the emptiness of white contributes to the general unity. Of course, the “Enchantments of the Sky and the Sea” are coming. Klein with a Untitled sponge sculpture (SE 90)1959, ready to join Matisse’s wool tapestry Polynesia, the sea (1946), hymn to freedom.
Finally, to finish, a passage by “Vence, a modern conquest”. THE Stained glass, study for the Tree of Life, chapel of Vence (1950) – blue cacti with yellow leaves, which seem to float in a liquid that looks like amniotic – calls for the Monochrome jaune (M56)1954-1955, one-piece parallelepiped. Promise kept. Here we are, overwhelmed, caught in a maelstrom of colors that have become shapes.
“The overwhelming power of color”, until April 14, at Mamac, Nice. Rens. : mamac-nice.org
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