A PARTICULAR PHOTO COMES TO ME OUT OF NOWHERE RIGHT BEFORE THE NEW YEAR …

FROM AN ARTIST I HAD NEVER HEARD OF. THE SYNCHRONICITY OF EVENTS.

Leap Into the Void (1960) by Yves Klein

The Bitter Withy

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John Fraim

(Don’t miss my friend Larry’s comment below. He asked Chat to give its impression of all this)

There’s a famous photo by the French avant-garde artist Yves Klein titled “Leap Into The Void” (1960) where the artist in the B&W photo seems to simply leap off the roof of a building into space, arms stretched out and face, looking upward in a hopeful expression. There is no fear in this leap. He seems to think he can fly. Or he does not worry that this leap could easily kill him. A person casually rides away from our view on a bicycle.

The history of the true French version of America’s Andy Warhol is Yves Klein who – believe it or not – led a wilder life than Warhol. One of the best short articles about Klein comes from Jacqui Palumbo in the 1/2/2020 Artsy Magazine. Jacqui’s article is a good place to start for anyone who wants to explore the amazing artist Yves Klein.

The photo came to me not by any conscious search but rather by haphazard coincidence. I often pull interesting images from the Internet for my posts and films. It was one of those times when I spotted a photo that drew my attention. You pull it into your library. Not sure where I was when I found this photo as I don’t keep track of where I am when I travel around the Internet.

But reading the article above, I realize how much I’ve missed of this incredible, inventive entertainer in the iconic Yves Klein. How had I missed such an eccentric artist like this? Klein wasn’t even in my radar. And I thought I had a good understanding of most all the crazy, eccentric artists out there. The famous photo was in 1960. One might want to check the date of the photo and the general state of the collective psychic state of the American culture at this time.

I filed the photo I picked up on the web into the iPhotos application on my Mac. And then, I went about the following days going through the family events a week before Christmas.

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Now, it’s after Christmas and the New Year is upon us as we enter a new time period of American history. Like a plane, approaching some runway. I’m not sure any of us – Democrat or Republican – know really what to expect in an administration intent on radically changing things. Much will be new and different. In some ways, this is that “void” Klein is leaping into. ( See short pieces by 15 leading futurists, foreign policy analysts and other prognosticators that provide some explosive potential scenarios for the new year.)

And Yves Klein’s photo to mind somehow. I pull it out of my iPhoto library and look at it on my computer screen. The large Omen computer screen I have. Mostly used by gamers but I love it as a general screen.

I read the above article by Jacqui Palumbo. I feel it’s worth sharing. It’s interesting that the Klein image and Jacqui’s article come together in time for me. Really, as it should be for those who believe in symbols. And, their movement in the dynamics of symbolism. Not through anyone’s conscious efforts of searching. But rather through the absence of conscious efforts towards searching for something. This absence creates a greater magnetism than one might ever believe.

* * *

Blue Monochrome by Yves Klein

I got interested in Klein after reading the article. I looked up the word “Leap” in Websters and read that it means “to spring free from or as if from the ground such as jump.” I looked up the definition of “void” in Websters and read that it means “empty space or the quality or state of being without something or a feeling of want or hollowness.” 

In the end, I felt that Kline’s 1960 photo sums up things for many in America today. Collective psychology that we hear zero about these days. No one seems interested whether there are psychological aspects today that unite rather than separate.

I suspect more than would want to admit feel united in the iconic photo. And the two words it expresses: jump and void. Yet the photo has archetypal imagery in that the Klein photo expresses a universal symbol of taking a “leap” into the “unknown void.” Leaping into unknown voids expresses the image of the nation’s founders, early settlers, western pioneers of America better than most images. Here, this spirit of “leaping” into the “void” (as opposed to being “pushed into it” or accidentally falling into it) is expressed by Klein. Jumping from the rooftop of a Paris home while someone casually passes on a bicycle. No special day in particular.

Yves Klein

Part of the narrative of the photo is that Klein asks us, the observers, “Haven’t most of you leaped into a void sometime in your lives?” Certainly most artists will identify with this situation. But others have a this feeling. The image of Kline is that the future is not just something to be cowered away from but rather embraced or “leaped” into. Not something to “fall” into but something to “jump” or “leap” into.

This leaping seems to feel good and fearfull at the same time. Like a lot of the important events in our life. As Webster defines it, it feel good to “spring free from the ground” or “jump.” But jumping into changing world (of AIi and everything it brings) into a type of unknown “void.” Much like the most important times in our lives that are both exciting and scary.

At the same time, the moment not dominated by either one of these emotions. Each always fighting the other to be the main emotion of the moment but never succeeding. The two locked in a perpetual battle. Giving the greatest dynamics to the situation. Much like the paradoxical founding symbols of America, Equality and Freedom. Or the mixing of liberation with fear.

An image of how many are approaching 2025

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John has been involved in research and writing on symbolism for many years. Has published to many online Jungian sites. He is the author of Battle of Symbols: Global Dynamics of Advertising, Entertainment and Media (Daimon Verlag, Zurich, 2003) on Amazon.