YVES KLEIN, Dimanche 27 November – Le journal d’un seul jour, 1960

   

YVES KLEIN, Dimanche 27 November – Le journal d’un seul jour, 1960
55,5 x 38 cm
letterpress on news print paper, 4 pages
edition unknown

For the “Festival d’Art d’Avant-garde” Yves Klein had his work “Leap Into the Void” for the first printed in his single day newspaper Dimanche, which was sold at newstands throughout Paris on Sunday the 27th of November 1960, and often appeared side by side with the real French newspaper Le journal du Dimanche. On the same day Klein held a press conference at the Galerie Rive Driote at 11 am, to announce the project. The four page broadside featured visual works and writings by Klein, including the manifesto Theatre of the Void.
The artist wrote (in French) the following text as introduction of his newspaper:

ACTUALITÉ

As part of the theatrical presentations of the Festival of Avant-garde Art in November-December 1960, I have decided to present the ultimate form of collective theater: a dimanche for everybody. I did not wish to limit myself to an afternoon or evening performance.

On dimanche, 27 November 1960, from midnight to midnight, I thus present a full day of festival, a true spectacle of the Void, as a culminating point of my theories. However, any other day of the week could have been used.

I wish that on this day joy and wonder will reign, that no one will get stage fright, and that everyone, conscious as well as unconscious actors-spectators of this gigantesque presentation, should have a good day.

That everyone will come and go, move about, or remain still.

Everything I write in this diary today precedes the presentation of this historic day for the theater. The theater should be or at least rapidly attempt to become the pleasure of being, of living, of spending wondrous moments, and with each passing day of better understanding the beauty of each moment. Everything I write in this dairy represents my own steps towards this glorious day of realism and truth: the field of operations of my proposed conception of theater is not only the city, Paris, but also the countryside, the desert, the mountains, even the sky, and even the entire universe. Why not? I know that everything inevitably is going to work out very well for everyone, spectators, actors, stagehands, directors, et. al..

I would like to thank Mr. Jacques Polieri, the director of the Avant-garde Festival, for his enthusiasm and for proposing to me that I present this “dimanche, November 27.”

Yves Klein

YVES KLEIN, reprint of front page on poster with blue text, 1991
56 x 38 cm
offset print on newspaper
published on the occasion of the exhibition “Yves Klein 1928-1962” at The Archives by The Archives, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

This poster pictures the cover of the 1960 Yves Klein newspaper “Dimanche”, distributed by Yves Klein on November 27, 1960.