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Leap into the Void

Artistic action by Yves Klein French
Photographed by Harry Shunk German
Photographed by János (Jean) Kender Hungarian
1960
Not on view
As in his carefully choreographed paintings in which he used nude female models dipped in blue paint as paintbrushes, Klein's photomontage paradoxically creates the impression of freedom and abandon through a highly contrived process. In October 1960, Klein hired the photographers Harry Shunk and Jean Kender to make a series of pictures re-creating a jump from a second-floor window that the artist claimed to have executed earlier in the year. This second leap was made from a rooftop in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses. On the street below, a group of the artist’s friends from held a tarpaulin to catch him as he fell. Two negatives--one showing Klein leaping, the other the surrounding scene (without the tarp)--were then printed together to create a seamless "documentary" photograph. To complete the illusion that he was capable of flight, Klein distributed a fake broadsheet at Parisian newsstands commemorating the event. It was in this mass-produced form that the artist's seminal gesture was communicated to the public and also notably to the Vienna Actionists.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Leap into the Void
  • Artist: Artistic action by Yves Klein (French, Nice 1928–1962 Paris)
  • Maker: Photographed by Harry Shunk (German, Reudnitz 1924–2006 New York (?))
  • Maker: Photographed by János (Jean) Kender (Hungarian, Pécs 1937–2009)
  • Date: 1960
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 25.9 x 20 cm (10 3/16 x 7 7/8 in.)
    Frame: 43.2 x 35.6 cm (17 x 14 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1992
  • Object Number: 1992.5112
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris; Photo: Shunk-Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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Dimanche – Le Journal d'un seul jour, Yves Klein French, Halftone and letterpress on newsprint
Dimanche – Le Journal d'un seul jour
Yves Klein
November 27, 1960
Blue Venus, Yves Klein French, Painted plaster
Blue Venus
Yves Klein
ca. 1961
La Colonne Morris dans le Brouillard, Brassaï French, born Romania (Transylvania), Gelatin silver print
La Colonne Morris dans le Brouillard
Brassaï
1932, printed ca. 1960
[Nude Study], Germaine Krull French, born Poland, Gelatin silver print
[Nude Study]
Germaine Krull
1930s
Mestanskeho Pivovaru, Patrick Faigenbaum French, Gelatin silver print
Mestanskeho Pivovaru
Patrick Faigenbaum
1994–96

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