Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle

The book took the form of a parody of a banker's chequebook. Klein printed eight books of these receipts of which five survive[9]- apart from the first book (which contained 31 unnumbered checks for an unspecified amount of gold), each book contains 10 numbered receipts for a set value of gold; series one cheques cost 20 grams of gold, series four cost 160 grams. The value of the seventh book's cheques was listed in the Antagonismes Exhibition, Paris 1960, at 1,280 grams.

Any gold that wasn't thrown into the Seine ended up in Klein's concurrent series of Monogolds; large scale works made of gold leaf. He had first come across the material's use in art whilst working in a framing workshop, Robert Savage's, in London 1949-50; he was also to encounter it used in golden Buddhas and screens whilst visiting Japan. Curiously, these encounters led Klein to associate the precious metal with immateriality;

"And the gold, it was something! These leaves that literally fluttered with the least current of air on the flat cushion that one held in one hand, while the other hand caught them in the wind with a knife.... What a material! The illumination of matter in its deep physical quality, I came to embrace it during that year at the 'Savage' frame shop." Klein[10]

The use of ritual is a theme running through Klein's work, from his exhibition Le Vide (The Void) 1958, in which he exhibited invisible works at Clert's gallery flanked by Republican Guards, to his elaborately planned wedding ceremony in 1962 and his votive offering to Saint Rita of Cascia (see ). Klein was fascinated by Catholicism & Buddhism, as well as being an enthusiastic member of the archaic group the Knights of the Order of Saint Sebastian.[11] The obsession with the void, or nothingness, also runs throughout his work, with Le Vide (The Void) being the most famous example; for his second major exhibition at Iris Clert's, he emptied the entire gallery, painted it white (using his patented medium) and then persuaded the French government to send Republican Guards to stand outside as sentries, at the end of a hallway painted ultramarine, covered with blue curtains to ensure there would be no way of anticipating the gallery's contents. Anyone who didn't have an invitation was charged 1,500 frs. entrance fee.[12] It was estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000 people turned up for the opening,[13] and Clert decided to prolong the exhibition for an extra week to accommodate the 'several hundred' visitors each day.[14]

“Having rejected nothingness, I discovered the void. The meaning of the immaterial pictorial zones, extracted from the depth of the void which by that time was of a very material order. Finding it unacceptable to sell these immaterial zones for money, I insisted in exchange for the highest quality of the immaterial, the highest quality of material payment – a bar of pure gold. Incredible as it may seem, I have actually sold a number of these pictorial immaterial states . . . Painting no longer appeared to me to be functionally related to the gaze, since during the blue monochrome period of 1957 I became aware of what I called the pictorial sensibility. This pictorial sensibility exists beyond our being and yet belongs in our sphere. We hold no right of possession over life itself. It is only by the intermediary of our taking possession of sensibility that we are able to purchase life. Sensibility enables us to pursue life to the level of its base material manifestations, in the exchange and barter that are the universe of space, the immense totality of nature.” Yves Klein, from the Chelsea Hotel Manifesto, 1961[15]

The French press delighted in calling the event 'a scandal' (Klein Sells Wind!), but others were more impressed;[1] Various members of the group present to watch Michael Blankfort's ritual transaction, for instance, on February 10, 1962, concurred that the event was 'extremely awe-inspiring',[1] ending with the noonday chimes ringing out from churches all around Paris. Blankfort, a Hollywood writer, wrote later of having "no other experience in art equal to the depth of feeling of [the sale ceremony]. It evoked in me a shock of self-recognition and an explosion of awareness of time and space."[16]

It has been suggested that the work is a response to Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction",[17] in which he wrote “The unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value.”[18] If so, the Zones directly refute Benjamin's central argument, that modern mass production can finally "emancipate the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual".[18]

"Believe me, one is not robbed when one buys such paintings; it is I who am always robbed because I accept money." Yves Klein[19]