Yves Klein: Dreaming in the Dream of Others

Published on the occasion of the homonymous exhibition held at the Opale Foundation (in Lens, Switzerland), the book Rêver dans le rêve des autres (Dreaming in the dream of others) presents the work of Yves Klein alongside with works by twelve Aboriginal artists (Angkaliya Curtis, Bardayal “Lofty” Nadjamerrek, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, Danie Mellor, Dhambit Munungurr, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Ignatia Djanghara, Paddy Bedford, Waigan Djanghara, Wattie Karruwara, Judy Watson, and Paji Honeychild Yankarr), showing how the link between the French artist and the world of the Australian Aborigines is anything but arbitrary. Klein was very interested in the non-Western: works from his youth have been discovered in his archives that were later identified as copies of Aboriginal motifs, and his writings confirm that he was familiar with the cave paintings of north-western Australia. In the ’50s, Aboriginal art, which was little known, was seen not as the expression of a different spirit, but rather as the survival of a vanished spirit, in short, that of the Neolithic: Yves Klein, like his parents, was fascinated by prehistory.

Published on the occasion of the homonymous exhibition held at the Opale Foundation (in Lens, Switzerland), the book Rêver dans le rêve des autres (Dreaming in the dream of others) presents the work of Yves Klein alongside with works by twelve Aboriginal artists (Angkaliya Curtis, Bardayal “Lofty” Nadjamerrek, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, Danie Mellor, Dhambit Munungurr, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Ignatia Djanghara, Paddy Bedford, Waigan Djanghara, Wattie Karruwara, Judy Watson, and Paji Honeychild Yankarr), showing how the link between the French artist and the world of the Australian Aborigines is anything but arbitrary. Klein was very interested in the non-Western: works from his youth have been discovered in his archives that were later identified as copies of Aboriginal motifs, and his writings confirm that he was familiar with the cave paintings of north-western Australia. In the ’50s, Aboriginal art, which was little known, was seen not as the expression of a different spirit, but rather as the survival of a vanished spirit, in short, that of the Neolithic: Yves Klein, like his parents, was fascinated by prehistory.