Haguenault - 25 Paintings for a History of Collecting, 2011

Digital Inkjet Print on Paper

Haguenault was the pseudonym chosen by Yves Klein for an early, provocative display of monochrome paintings, made in the form of a small book. Each monochrome existed as a small tipped-in plate on a page, inscribed with a location (ambiguously functioning as documentary information, or as a title) and a size for each of the works.

In 2011, Phaidon produced it’s own manifestation of a Museum Without Walls, in its book ‘The Art Museum’. Containing 1640 reproduction images, it eschewed the logic of Andre Malraux’s Imaginary Museum, to construct new relationships and transforming encounters, preferring instead a structure dependent upon broad and generalised time periods and geographies. Each section of the book begins with a design-oriented colour page.

Using the paint dropper tool to sample colour, Haguenault - 25 Paintings for A History of Collecting, draws out and puts on display the colours chosen to begin each section of the book, with. their respective locations and periods as the caption. It places this into view to query the organisation of locations and genres after Malraux (and Warburg).