Material States: Yves Klein and Günther Uecker | Lévy Gorvy Dayan
This spring and summer, the very fancy Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery has put on several shows that draw connections between two mid-century artistic giants, Yves Klein and Günther Uecker. Firstly in New York City, there were simultaneous but separate exhibitions: a wide-ranging Klein show which included a pile of IKB-coloured powder at the bottom of the gallery’s grand staircase, and a collection of Uecker’s dazzlingly bright, blue and white Lichtbogen paintings.
This current London show, while in very slightly more modest surroundings, brings the two together in the same room. In fact, the two artists knew each other well, with Uecker’s sister marrying Klein before the latter’s untimely death in 1962. Uecker is still going strong, and spoke with the gallery about Klein on the occasion of the show. “We spent entire days together,” he says. “I admired him enormously. It was his spiritual world that influenced my work. He showed me the way to the void.”
Günther Uecker, Hommage à Yves Klein II (1962)
There are a few paintings and sculptures representing both artist’s greatest hits. A sponge sculpture, a gold leaf panel painting and of course some RKB-coloured works for Klein. For Uecker, several of his trademark canvases with painted nails hammered in, in various arresting patterns.
The convergence between the two artists is closest in the work pictured above. It’s one of those made by Uecker on the occasion of Klein’s death, all those years ago. “It was a way to process my emotions,” the artist explains. “I punched a canvas and the wooden boards behind it until my hands started bleeding. And then I stretched the canvas and splashed white paint onto it, because it seemed too literal. At the center of the work is my blood, resulting from the pain I felt over the fact that Yves Klein had fallen into the sky.”
Of course, the viewer’s experience of the work comes in the context of a climate-controlled upper-floor room in Mayfair, in an exhibition put on by a gallery that is flexing its powerful connections with big-money artists. But the human pain in that white stain, and those penitential nails, pierce through the miasma of cash-driven showing-off. Which is why I went up the stairs to the fancy gallery in the first place.
Material States: Yves Klein and Günther Uecker is at Lévy Gorvy Dayan (London). 20 June - 02 August 2024