Art dhe Kulturë

This old bill can be sold for $ 500,000 at auction. Why is it so important?

This old bill can be sold for $ 500,000 at auction. Why is it so important?
In 1958, artist Yves Klein opened an exhibition called "The Void," in which he placed a large sideboard in an empty room. Thousands of visitors pay to see anything in a Paris gallery.

Following the success of the show, the French artist gave collectors the opportunity to purchase a range of non-existent and entirely conceptual spaces in exchange for a pure gold object. And now, almost 60 years after Klein's death, one of the bills he wrote to prove ownership of his invisible artwork has gone on sale at Sotheby's auction house, which he valued at $ 551,000.

This old bill can be sold for $ 500,000 at auction. Why is it so important?
Yves Klein

The invoice gives ownership of one of Klein's imaginary spaces and is signed by the artist for one of the imaginary spaces created by him "Intangible Picturesque Sensitivity Zones" and belongs to December 7, 1959.

The bill is among the few thought to have survived to the present day, Sotheby's said in a press release. This is because Klein offered his clients a choice: save the bill or burn it in a ritual. If they chose the latter, they were considered the "ultimate owners" of the conceptual work of art. As part of Klein's art, he then burned the bill in the presence of witnesses before dumping half of the gold that was paid into the Seine River.

The bill has been put up for sale by art consultant and former gallery owner Loïc Malle, who is auctioning off over 100 items from his private collection.

Sotheby's said it would accept payments in cryptocurrency for the item and confirmed in a press release that the buyer "will not only become the custodian of this historic bill, but also of Klein's invisible work of art".

Klein, who died in 1962, was an important figure in the nouveau réalisme (new realism) movement, which used art to overturn viewers' perceptions of reality. In 1957, he opened an exhibition in Milan with 11 blue canvases, identical in shape, shade and size. His most famous work is the 1960 photograph "Leap into the Void", in which the artist appears to be jumping from a high wall, although in fact it was a composition of two separate images.