| ♕ |  Riomaggiore at sunset  | by © B℮n | via ysvoice trophy #cat visualgraphic: Float lylaandblu: Yves Klein Leap into the Void (photographed by Harry Shunk), 1960 gelatin silver print, 25.9 x 20 cm (10 3/16 x 7 7/8 in.) As in his carefully choreographed paintings in which he used nude female models dipped in blue paint as paintbrushes, Klein’s photomontage paradoxically creates the impression of freedom and abandon through a highly contrived process. In October 1960, Klein hired the photographers Harry Shunk and Jean Kender to make a series of pictures re-creating a jump from a second-floor window that the artist claimed to have executed earlier in the year. This second leap was made from a rooftop in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses. On the street below, a group of the artist’s friends from held a tarpaulin to catch him as he fell. Two negatives—one showing Klein leaping, the other the surrounding scene (without the tarp)—were then printed together to create a seamless “documentary” photograph. To complete the illusion that he was capable of flight, Klein distributed a fake broadsheet at Parisian newsstands commemorating the event. It was in this mass-produced form that the artist’s seminal gesture was communicated to the public and also notably to the Vienna Actionists.