Klein

Exceptional evening around the artist and his work on fire
Mediations - Readings - Projections - Ball

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
Saturday, October 19, 2019 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Free entry - Free

In 1957, Yves Klein made his first "Painting of Fire" in the garden of the Colette Allendy gallery in Paris on the evening of the opening of his exhibition "Monochrome Proposals". The artist then lights sixteen Bengal fires fixed on a blue monochrome. He continued his exploration of fire as a plastic element a few years later in a monographic exhibition at the Krefeld Museum in 1961. Klein then had a structure of fifty double Bunsen beaks with low combustion and a fountain of fire. On the night of February 26, the closing date of the exhibition, the artist records on paper the traces of the burners and the flame of the fountain. For several years, in parallel with his "anthropometry" and "monochromes", Klein thus resorted to the creative power of fire, captured the primordial energies and experimented with an archaic mode of appearance of form. Two "Paintings of Fire" are presented at MAMAC in a room dedicated to the artist.

On a project developed in collaboration with the Yves Klein estate, an edition of the Wall of Fire in two metal elements and ten rows of gas-powered Bunsen beaks was installed on the south terrace of the MAMAC in 1990 - the year the museum opened. The lighting is performed at night events and offers the public a spectacular moving composition. This monumental and emblematic work of the museum has been restored by the City of Nice thanks to the support of PRIMAGAZ in 2019.

To celebrate this restoration and share the magic of the Wall of Fire with the public, MAMAC and PRIMAGAZ are organizing a night opening of the museum open to all public on Saturday, October 19, 2019 from 6pm to 9pm. This evening will be punctuated by events around Yves Klein: readings of tales, mediations, theatrical readings by the comedian Félicien Chauveau and an open-air ball orchestrated by the Antipodes Company. Children from neighbourhood associations will present mediations worked especially for the occasion. The evening will end on the roof terrace of the MAMAC with the burning of the Wall of Fire.

Full www.mamac-nice.org program

Wall of Fire, 1961-1990
Metal grid composed of 2 panels and 300 Bunsen beaks
MAMAC Collection, Nice
Work restored in 2019 with support from PRIMAGAZ

Visual Legend: Yves Klein, The Fire Dream, (IMMA 41), circa 1960
© Estate Yves Klein, ADAGP, Paris 2019
Photo © Harry Shunk and Janos Kender - J.Paul Getty Trust. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. (2014.R.20)