KLEIN BLU, THE COLOR OF TORTURE

One of the colors that we are seeing the most this season of AW21 in all the windows and online stores is the Klein blue color. Did you know that there is a history of this color?

Although it seems like a color without more, it is not true that it is, since its use (since its creation in 1954) extends to the present between the different seasons. A color that stands out for its intensity of pigmentation and its somewhat electric strength. It is true that the original idea of ​​creating this color was not bad. However, as its creator used it later ... it leaves much to be desired. If this event had developed in our century, more than one feminist dispute would have been a trending topic with this color. I tell you why:

The International Klein Blue (IKB) color was developed by Yves Klein in collaboration with Edouard Adam in 1954. The traditional oil used to convert blue pigment to ultramarine blue always adulterated the color. With the help of Adam, who developed the medium, a liquid that made it possible to achieve the purity of the blue color of the sky and maintain the original intensity of the pigment, Yves Klein invented his own color, and called it International Klein Blue. The uniqueness of the IKB is not derived from its pigment, but from the matte synthetic resin binder in which the color is suspended, and which allows the pigment to maintain in the best possible way the greatest of its original qualities: its chromatic intensity.

In January 1957, Proposte monochrome, epoca blu, was inaugurated at the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. It featured eleven 78 × 56 cm works, painted evenly with a solid International Klein Blue that saturated the limited space of the venue, thus presenting a room filled with monochrome paintings. This show began its blue period.

However, it was not until May 1960, Klein filed an application in the registry with the paint formula, under the name International Klein Blue (IKB) at the National Institute of Industrial Property of France (INPI), but never patented the IKB. According to French law, this application served only to record the date of an invention, according to the depositor, prior to any legal patent application. Furthermore, he died at an early age and was unable to complete this process. The copy held by INPI was destroyed in 1965, but Klein's own copy, which INPI gave him duly sealed at the time, still exists.

Klein's vision was to express absolute immateriality and infinite space through pure color. He was obsessed with the purity of color, specifically this blue that so closely resembled the color of Lapis Lazuli and that, for centuries, had been very difficult to make until Klein made it.

The great controversy surrounding this color dates back to March 9, 1960 when Anthropométries de l'Epoque bleue was inaugurated at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, in Paris. For this work, Klein had three models naked and covered in blue paint, which pressed, brutally, on a canvas on the walls and on the floor. At the same time that the Monotone Symphony, composed between 1947 and 1948 by Klein, was performed, a piece of music composed with a single note. This work tried to express, according to the point of view of Klein, the hysteria that the woman suffered during her menstrual period. Do we go crazy with menstruation and its pains? From Klein's misogynistic point of view it was. I leave you here a link so that you can judge the work yourself. https://youtu.be/h50IzHh4T_g

Although it is a beautiful color for its intensity and the works are truly works of art, the message it conveyed was not. This made it, rightly so, for a long time to be a rejected color.

Today, nothing hatred awaits this color and we simply combine it with other complementary or opposite colors to create incredible looks. Anyway, using this color can also be vindictive to fight against your original idea of ​​creation. That is why many artists and designers after Klein have used it to support the female figure and not denigrate it. Would you dare to use this color?