Obsessed and Impassioned about All Things Klein

Saturday night at The Brooklyn Rail headquarters: I'm attending a party for the artseen staff. The occasion was to meet fellow writers, many of whom I haven't met. I'm talking with William Powhida, passing a flask of Sazerac Rye (I'm a bit of a snob about spirits) around when a guy walks up drinking a TGIF Fridays Mudslide in a glass container. I playfully chide him for drinking a "Mudslide," a pre-mixed "cocktail" I associate with my high school girlfriend's mother, who occasionally allowed us as teens to have a sip. It's also probably a synthetic concoction of high fructose corn syrup, chocolate flavor, alcohol and milk solids.

"I'm Hrag," he says.

"I'm Greg," I reply. I recognize his name, a fellow writer at the Rail whose writing I have admiringly followed since he reviewed someone with whom I went to grad school.

"What's your last name?"

I tell him, which makes Hrag enraged.

"You wrote this month about Yves Klein and Terence Koh."

"Right...?" I say.

"I fucking hate Terence Koh!" Because of you, his dealer tweeted that the Brooklyn Rail said Terence Koh was as great a Yves Klein!"

"Well, it was only a mention," I stammer, caught off guard.

"I'm going to kick your ass! I hate Koh!" he says, now pretty irate.

"It was my girffriend's idea!" I retort, which it was-- she's pretty sharp.

With that, Hrag exits the party. "Maybe I shouldn't have provoked him and his mudslide," I told William, "I just got blasted."

In all honesty, I am no authority on Koh's work, but on the other hand, I simply said, "Terence Koh’s installations, which often reveal his obsession with all things white or nothing at all but light, come to mind when thinking of Klein’s pursuit of the immaterial." And: Koh's dealer's twitter post simply said, "Terence Koh mentioned in Yves Klein article..cool with me!"(3:27 AM, Sep 4). Which is pretty much what it was. And maybe the fact the tweet suggests some surprise to find the two artists connected says something. And admitting influence doesn't necessarily stake approval in where Koh has possibly taken Klein's ideas of the immaterial.

I admire Hrag's passion. What about Koh would give you that sort of emotional response? What about Koh's work inspires such an inflamed reaction? Hrag, I admit my comparison was glib. I agree that Koh and Klein are nowhere near peers in greatness and I never claimed so. I mentioned but then really didn't expand on it (isn't this a challenge of deadline writing?). If I look further, I may be able to look at Klein's love for celebrity, fame, and sensational acts with some sort of similarity to Koh's, especially in their unabashed, extreme narcissism. I think Klein would have loved to design Lady Gaga's piano, or paint her white (blue) as a performace. And, Hrag, can you hate Koh without hating Klein-- and what aspect of Klein's universe? What distinguishes the two? Where do you draw the line? I'm just curious.

Installation view of “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” (2010). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Peter Schjeldahl defines "taste" as a "sediment of aesthetic experience, commonly somebody else's." I think he has said it quite right. We acquire many tastes through association, through friendships and social circles. I think I recognized this in high school when I was explaining to an older friend that a girl I liked didn't like hardcore punk music. "Hardcore is an acquired taste," my friend admitted. Also, I really hated whiskey when I first tasted it, but now, it's probably my liquor of choice. I also avoid high fructose corn syrup, which is like the heroin of sweeteners, turning off our brain's ability to tell us when we're satiated.

After writing a review for this month's Brooklyn Rail, I decided to trek with my girlfriend back to DC for one last look at the Yves Klein retrospective at the Hirshhorn. She hadn't seen it yet. The show is one that you cannot see in reproduction-- the International Klein Blue (IKB) is almost blinding in its brilliance. The sponge sculptures on pedestals are weirdly beautiful all over, evoking the richness of a seascape underwater. But conceptually, thinking about the wide reach of Klein's markmaking, it was a strange timing to discover the NY Times article on Dan Colen.

Dan Colen, far right, and assistants drag a canvas behind an all-terrain vehicle.

The Colen article is part press release, part human interest story, includes a photo essay detailing how several of Colen's process-based works were made. Several's final products were paintings with various mark making inventions, like chewed and heated bubble gum, or canvases pulled through tall, lush Connecticut grass with all terrain vehicles (Klein made paintings using grass as a sort of paintbrush and relief printmaking technique. Another work was a sculpture, a skateboard half pipe, marred by skateboard wheels, displayed upside down as a bridge-like form. Judging from the conversations I've had, many art worlders are loving to hate this artist's debut show at Gagosian. But I secretly wished I would have written Dan Colen's show into the Klein article, be it suffer a similar protest as the Koh comparison.

Yves Klein, “Untitled Blue Sponge Sculpture (SE 89),” c. 1960.

The only comparison Roberta Smith made in her review of the Klein show feels glib and I wish to have heard more about her thoughts on Judd and Klein, knowing her affection for Judd: "Donald Judd, whose extensive use of fiery cadmium red light in his early painted wood pieces was partly if not wholly indebted to Klein, wrote admiringly that Klein’s paintings were “the only ones that are unspatial.” It's disappointing that Smith only quotes from Judd's "Specific Objects," which signals how Minimalism co-opted Klein's monochromes, Judd adding that "Klein's blue paintings are narrow and intense." If you still might need convincing, look no farther then the visual comparison below of Klein's IKB "stack," (a piece in the exhibition that I am surprised Smith didn't comment about) made in 1957, to Judd's stack pieces, the first in 1967 and second in 1990.

Yves Klein, “Untitled Sculpture (S 1, 3, 4, 5),” 1957

Donald Judd, Untitled (stack), 1967

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1990

It appears Judd didn't write about Klein until January 1963, a year after Klein died. I find Judd's review more insightful than his mentions in "Specific Objects": "Copious Publicity and Klein's own shenanigan's proclaimed him the best, the newest of young artists. It seems to have been true. But although the biggest frog, he was the biggest frog of a stagnant pond." Judd goes on to describe the Anthropomotries as "a touching imprint of a neat butt," then, not surprising, declaring that "The blue paintings are the interesting ones; the others, despite their flamboyant means, are not unusual." Judd says that Klein's paintings have "an unmitigated, pure but very sensuous beauty...There is nothing which objectifies or mitigates the pungent beauty but it's difficult strength." Only Judd could look at rounded edges in these paintings and declare them "erotic blue objects."

Yves Klein, “La Rêve du Feu” [The Dream of Fire], c. 1961.

Later at the Rail party, James Kalm and I stood around the barbeque as he tended the coals, played in the fire watching the flames glimmer as food sizzled. James and I talk about Klein and his eccentric, conceptual reaches. "Well, you know," James said "There are some people who say that Klein was hooked on amphetamines and that his heart attack was induced by his stimulant habits. " Even though the documentary at the Hirshhorn claims Klein had a heart attack at a screening for a documentary that mocked his Anthropometrie performances, I knew in my heart that James may have been right. After all, Klein played with fire and wanted to at least maintain the illusion that he could hold it in the palm of his hand.