Socio-metaphysical void: Yves Klein’s textual and imagistic performance of Théȃtre du vide

Abstract

Yves Klein’s conceptual project Theatre of the Void is associated with two well-known works: the single appearance of the newspaper Dimanche, which Klein published on 27 November 1960 with a declaration that the world is voided for twenty-four hours; and the iconic image Leap into the Void, which appears in it for the first time. This article reframes the project—by offering an inclusive, structural, and theoretically contextualized reading of its interrelated components. Seen as one level of action embedded within another, the simulated newspaper infiltrated the city; within the urban site it constitutes a declaratory performative act of total voiding; responding to the declaration, the leap is the agency of the total transformation into the voided world; and this world is potentially established and reflected by the interdisciplinary scenarios printed in Dimanche. Within this framework, the article discusses the project’s conceptual “socio-metaphysical” duality. One aspect of this duality is the project’s conception of total voiding as a metaphysical endeavor aiming at transcendence. The other is the insight that the project qualifies existence itself as a voided socio-political fabrication.