Yves Klein: Animation and the Pictorial moment

Much of Yves Klein’s artwork is concerned with the possibilities of space; space in relation to performance and environment, existential spatial connections between the body in space, as well as space and the void – the colourization of infinity and the void as being (Yves Klein) blue. Building on previous personal practical work and research based on space and animation this paper considers and connects two aspects that Klein posits as important in the generation of his work, 1) equilibrium and dis-equilibrium and 2) the realisation of monochromatic abstraction that exists beyond the frame of the painting (Cheetham, 2014, Art Journal, pp. 94-109). As concepts these ideas can be examined as an exchange within the realm of animation; the concept of performance and relationships with the frame; the importance of the colour and the control of colour; the notion of balance and the analysis of movement, each one with the ability to inform the other. Also, and perhaps crucially (as highlighted by Klein) it is often how as creative practitioners we might resolve to confront or break these ideas, to explore and move beyond accepted boundaries, allowing one aspect to dissolve or mutate in order to affect another. By referring to Klein’s passion for Judo and his apparently unfulfilled ambition to convert Judo movements into ‘abstract animated lines or imprints traced directly onto film’, (Banai, 2014, p.52) the Martial ART event held at Tate Liverpool in November 2016 brings together animators, Judokas and the general public to directly explore some of these concepts. Via this paper I intend to relay captured comments, ideas, observations on space in connection to the event which asked two key questions: 1) How might the Martial ART event capture a concern for process, i.e. a revealing of the process of a technical exchange between the discipline of generating the precise, skilled movements of Judo, to the discipline of capturing and expressing this movement through the art of animation. In what ways has this event enabled an understanding of this practice? 2) How can an exchange of principles between judo practice and animation practice act to reinforce an understanding of movement and the capture of this movement.