ISSBM [ISS BLUE MARBLE]

Conceptualized as an hommage to French Artist Yves Klein and the early days of space exploration, the artwork consists of a sculpture representing a drop of Yves Klein IKB, a blue paint created by Yves Klein, “suspended” in zero gravity. The IKB samples being provided through a unique partnership with Yves Klein Archives.

It echoes Klein’s famous photographs “Leap into the Void (1960)” and the concept of the “Blue marble”, The Blue Marble is an image of Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the Apollo 17 crew Harrison Schmitt and Ron Evans from a distance of about 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) from the planet’s surface. It was taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon, and is one of the most reproduced images in history.

The sculpture consists of a sculpted, magnified and iconized drop of blue paint encased inside an epoxy cube, being therefore seeminly suspended in zero gravity either on the ISS or on Earth, awaiting for an audience to reactivate it’s multiple meanings by simply looking at it. The deep blue is a call for meditation, recalling both our blue planet, the beginnings of the space era and the uniqueness of the Zero Gravity environments. Where Yves Klein used the name International Klein Blue (IKB) to protect his Intellectual property rights, we use the title ISSBM to put a focus on International collaboration, and the invaluable preciousness of our own blue marble, the planet Earth.