Yves Klein / Harry Shunk - Leap in the void / Saut dans le vide

Le saut dans le vide. Tirage argentique.

Leap into the Void, 1960
Yves Klein (French, 1928–1962)
photographed by Harry Shunk (German, 1924–2006) and Janos Kender (Hungarian, 1937–1983)

This photo is signed by Harry Schunk and is an edition of 3 that Harry Schunk sold after Yves Klein 's death total is edition 3 plus 2 HC plus 1 for exhibition).
Size 120 x 96 cm

Exhibited:
Yves Klein - Harry Shunk, Kunsthalle Bâle, 1990
Le saut dans le vide, centre culturel français de Moscou, 17 mai - 26 juin 1994 reproduced in catalog
Azur, fondation Cartier, 27 Mai-12 septembre 1993, reproduced in catalog page 157
Les Jardins de la vierge, Espace 251 Nord Brussels, septembre-octobre 1993
Insomnie (insomnia), centre d'art contemporain, domaine de Kerguehennec, juillet 1995
Icare, villa du parcn centre d'exposition 8 janvier-7 mars 1998

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.