Anthropometry

Mediums: oil, canvas, paper, resin.
Location: Musée Cantini, Marseille, France.

After the cycles of monochrome paintings, Klein made a series of anthropometries. This is how he called the paintings created by nude models. The female body performed the function of a brush: the models covered with blue paint had to lie on the canvases, cuddle or roll over them to produce prints. Klein used the idea in a theatrical performance: viewers could watch the movements of nude models with blue cocktails and the sound of a “monotonous symphony” (one note in ten minutes and then ten minutes of silence). Although the peculiar performance at times represented a bizarre and sometimes comical spectacle, the resulting works represent an original, fresh and vivid approach to creating a figurative painting. Some critics believe that the artist conveyed the sensations from the threat of the Cold War.