Maybe it’s because my first decorating debacle was painting our living room Blue Tequila, but blue is not my favorite color. I know I’m in the minority, and I’m sure I’ll have many opportunities to revisit that statement since turquoise is Pantone’s color for the year, but for now I’m sticking to my story. Blue is sentimental. Flat. Candace Olsen. It just leaves me cold. There are exceptions to my personal ban on blue, though: Kelly Wearstler’s Avalon Hotel, Raina’s Newburyport Blue bedroom, and anything International Yves Klein Blue.

Brown Davis

Those of you who have been reading this blog forever know I am OBSESSED with Yves Klein and his badass blue. Everyone else can read these posts I wrote 800 million years ago here and here and here. It’s because IYKB is otherwordly. Klein Blue’s super special combination of pigments vibrate with an intensity that most skimpy, wimpy blues lack. Would I paint my entire home IYKB? Well, no. I want to visit outer space, not live there.

Christoph Theurer

A little touch of IYKB here and there would make me an intergalactic tourist, and that suits me just fine. I especially love Yves Klein’s modern reinterpretation of classical sculptures, which are perennial favorites of well heeled collectors.

OWI

Look expensive? That would be because they are HELLACIOUSLY expensive. Guess what’s also expensive?

Architectural Digest

A lucite coffee table chock full of Yves Klein Blue pixie dust. Oh, and this fancy pad belongs to Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, so YES. The globe is also an Yves Klein piece, because homedude is crazyballs rich, that’s why.

Cote Maison via Lampshade

Chicago Home Mag

1st Dibs has one for $24,000. Come on, you know you want it…

Of course nothing tops the rarity of Klein’s Anthropometres paintings, since they represent the imprint of an experience and are not reproducible. In other words, Klein greased up some sexy babes with IYKB paint and drug them around a piece of paper. I smell an art project coming on…

Walso Fernandez

Aaron Hom

An Yves Klein poster is really more in my price point.

Living Etc

Perhaps the best thing about IYKB is that it’s just a color — maybe Pantone 286, to be exact? Steal from the best. Get some shockingly blue paint and start spreading the sexy. Even that damn cardboard deer head looks better in Klein Blue.

OWI

Amanda Nisbet

Studio Ilse

Damian Russell

Or if you’re a fancy beast, they make blue upholstery, too.

1st Dib owner Michael Bruno’s Apartment

Greg Natale

Amie Weitzman

Cote Maison

And of course, sometimes just a dab will do you.

Whew, dudes, did you see all those pictures? This post was a labor of love. As in, I literally feel like I just squeezed out a giant blue baby. But my obsession with IYKB deserved the full treatment, so I’m just going to pat and coo and love this big blue spawn, because he’s such a handsome boy. Yes he is. Now, go forth and paint something Klein Blue. Make mama proud.

It’s such a perfect day here in Austin — the sun is shining, birds are singing, and I should be outside planting fall trees, but no. Huh uh. I’m huddled in front of the computer screen, waiting for last night’s vodka to relax its greasy fingers and release my poor pounding head. The upside? My Obsessive Computer Disorder always reaches epic proportions in the fever pitch of my worst hangovers, and as a result, I found this on the Domino website:

Another Robert Longo sighting! All five of you who have been reading DC since the very beginning know I have a wee fixation with Art trend spotting, and months ago I wrote a post on the flurry of Longo prints that were cropping up in interiors. For the vast legions of our new readers, time to review:

Seriously — how apropos are these 80’s Longo lithographs of suicidal stockbrokers? Remind you of anything?

(Thanks to the lovely Raina at If The Lampshade Fits for this excellent montage)

But wait! There’s more! While some folks may be downsizing or downright panicking about market volatility as a financial harbinger of the end of days, others are comforted by the fact that art is always a sound investment… Right? Right???!

Architect Peter Marino’s clients certainly seem to think so, as the now ubiquitous Yves Klein table continues to make its rounds in the homes of the well heeled. A few months ago I chronicled the rise of the Klein blue table in tony interiors, like the home of design superstars Yabu and Pushelberg:

But if you’d like to review, check out the post here, where you’ll find such gems as this quote by designer David Netto: “You’re not living until you have an Yves Klein coffee table.” Newsflash — I’m dead! Well, that explains the tremendous headache and dizziness, now accompanied by nausea. Thanks!

Suddenly, though, I am struck by the thought that an Yves Klein coffee table might not be such a bad investment after all.

Just make sure you get the one stuffed with 24 karat gold flakes.

In my last post I extolled the virtues of all things Yves Klein and therefore, by the transitive property A=B and B=C, also all things blue, and also all things crazy but awesome. I’m a little weary of the robin’s egg blue that was so popular for the last few years, and I just painted over my tequila blue living room (so I think you can gather how I feel about that), but this blue is all neon excitement – more sapphire than powder, more sexy than sentimental, and definitely not for the faint of heart.

This girl gets it:

Comparing her wardrobe to a swatch of Klein’s patented Blue, you can see that she’s not entirely on the money, but her claim to wear nothing but IYKB is not without merit. And frankly, I think it does a lot for her complexion. And it’s certainly better than the guy who looks like Paul Giamatti but isn’t and only wears brown. Really? Brown? Do I even need to go into the associations there? It’s too early in the morning.

Of course, this is an interior design blog (for lack of a better category), so I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t shower you with some home decor porn, and you know I live to serve you, my ladyfriends (and gay BFFs??? hellll-ooo? Are you there???).

Without further ado:

Starting it off with a bang are these gorgeous rooms designed by Andrew Suvlasky. Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me? I love the gender neutrality of this color. Not so masculine as to say, “I like hunting and tweed” and not so feminine as to say “I like birds and twee pastels, thank you very much.” And when it’s blue on blue on blue – par example, the right picture – it just feels saturated instead of hyperactive. Try that with any other pop color.

And, of course, Klein Blue does work beautifully as an accent color, too:

That IS a pornoramic view in this bedroom designed by Brown and Davis, but those seductive pillows and drapes almost outsexify it. Plus whoever photographed this interior did an amazing job. The double gourd lamp in turquoise is a bit strange, though…

Another room that strikes a blue note:

John Demsey’s bachelor pad designed by Bibi Monnahan, via Habitually Chic. Check out the whole tour on her site because the guy has a great photography collection (as well as some chairs that Miss Karly would lurve). Again, there is some weird lamp action going on here, but I still think this is such a livable apartment, much more accessible than something done up all in beige like my uptight BF Patrick Bateman and his super sterile bachelor pad.

Of course, if you need some extra stimulation, you could go all the way, like this room designed for the Kip’s Bay Showhouse by Christpher Maya:

Yes, it’s a little patriotic for my taste, but I like the wall color and blue chair. I think it could lighten up and take itself a little less seriously, though, like this bubbly kitchen spied in Domino’s quirky kitchen gallery:

All those balls make me giggle and the barstools are kind of killing me (anyone else offended by those ubiquitous pseudo-futuristic stools? Probably just me… as usual), but I do like the light ‘n’ freshness of the entire ensemble.

And finally, after the slew of blue and chrome combos, a reminder that electric blue looks fantastically sultry when paired with gold:

Ok, what would not look good in Italy’s amazing Palazzo Ducale di Sassuolo? But these modern works by Winston Roeth are spectacular in juxtaposition with cherubic white and gold. (via, once again, Habitually Chic) 

Funny, those paintings look familar, don’t they? After all, Roeth wasn’t the first artist to paint a monochrome canvas in what is essentially, ahem, Yves Klein Blue. But I suppose if you’re in the business of painting monochromes, then you must be aware that what you’re selling is not talent, but a concept, and Klein understood marketing better than anyone. 

Yves Klein was always good at anticipating trends (pretentiously called “movements” in art, but the great cultural critic Walter Benjamin realized early on that art is inevitably bound up in fashion), and he was always good at creating something out of nothing. Witness his “Leap Into the Void,” where he markets his greatest product, ever: himself.

Oh, hell, whatever. Enough art history. I like blue. Not to go Seussian, but take the leap. You might, too.

Well, friends, today’s post comes to you from the depths of Ye Olde Texarkana, located at — you guessed it — the funky junction of Texas, Arkansas and Louisisana. To put it mildly, my computer here is a little wonky (AOL???! why not just hook a bicycle up to the computer and pedal to power it like crazy Ed Begley Jr.?), but bear with me for a two-part series on the crazy adventures of Yves Klein and the electric blue zeitgeist that’s sweeping the decornation.

When I was in art school, Yves Klein was something of a mystery to me. A conceptualist in the 50’s and 60’s, a lot of what he did was just paint stuff –any stuff — blue, but not just any blue; he patented his own lapis lazuli shade which he titled IYKB (International Yves Klein Blue).

(photos courtesy of the Yves Klein Archives).

Yves loved him some naked ladies, which he employed as paint brushes that wielded his Klein Blue paint during performances where Anthropometries, or visual measurements of the human body, were created.  And so the human paintbrush trend was born…

But he wasn’t above stealing readymade forms, like a copy of the torso of Venus or a common globe, and coating them with blue paint, much like Karly covers everything in gold paint. I suppose International Yves Klein Blue has a continental ring to it that International Erin Williamson Puce doesn’t really have, but I’m starting to think I should have gotten wise to the whole “just paint stuff” movement a lot sooner.

Yves died in 1962 of a heart attack — dude was only 34! — but a lot of his works have been in heavy rotation for the last couple of years. Check out that very same bust of Venus in a contemporary posh pad decorated by Brown and Davis:

Blue and yellow are back together again, for the very first time…

And here’s the now familiar globe at the Hotel Verhaegen in Belgium:

In this room, that globe looks like it landed from an alien planet and I LIKE it. I also like the idea of staying at a hotel where an incredibly expensive piece of art is just sitting on the coffee table, waiting for me to stash it in my slightly oversized purse.

The most attainable and decorative of Klein’s works are the infamous lucite coffee tables that have been popping up everywhere:

Design superduo Yabu and Pushelberg are practically cooing over their Klein table, which I must say, makes a major statement in their largely monochromatic apartment.

And according to Habitually Chic’s website, designer David Netto says “You’re not living until you have an Yves Klein cofffee table.”  I guess I’ll keep that in mind, that is if I have a mind, because I must be dead. Oh, and just in case I’m not already sleeping with the fishes, the rest of David Netto’s art collection makes me want to choke it’s so amazing.

But not quite as amazing as Marianne Boesky’s collection, which features a pink Klein table. Surprised you with that one, didn’t I? Extra credit if you remembered from an earlier post that he made gold tables, too.

I love the bizarre pop of color these tables give to conservative spaces, and I would KILL someone for those hooded head prints. This may be one of my favorite apartments. Ever.

Back to blue. Focus! So, I can’t afford one of the only 300 tables in each color that were made. But I was thinking of buying one of these and working it over:

The OG table on top, lefty is from Eurway and righty is from Ikea. It would be so easy to paint the tops of either table and have a piece of plexi cut to cover the top, just to protect the finish and add some extra shine.

So move over gold, there’s a new color to just paint stuff: Klein Blue, aka, Pantone 72C Pantone 286 mixed with Reflex Blue. Thanks, Anna at Door Sixteen, for alerting me to my faulty color match!

People, I am busy. I am literally (seriously) going fishing tomorrow, and I have buckets of fried okra to eat after that, but I’ll be back for Thursday’s sure to be poorly written AWESOME post, where I shall overload you with pretty pictures of Klein Blue interiors. Because I heart you.

I hate sports. I was never a soccer player, sucked at tennis, and got beaten up in PE. Can you say dodgeball? Nevertheless, I — like so many people around the globe — am completely obsessed with the Olympics, especially gymnastics, which is chock full of uber-buff men who wear leotards and do the splits. I am also VERY SURPRISED to find a not insignificant amount of nationalist competitive spirit lodged in my card-carrying communist (socialist? liberal? whatever the old folks call us these days), pinko heart.

That’s right: GO AMERICA. KICK EVERYONE ELSE’S ASS. (But if you’re not from the United States, feel free to insert your team in the following blank. It’s ok. I’ll try not to hold it against you.) So for you, ______, I present a day of golden awesomeness in celebration of all the ass we’ve already kicked, as well as all of the ass-kicking yet to come.

If you need some help getting into the gold grubbing spirit, try these $429 24-karat filled pills by Tobias Wong at Generate Design. Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will come out fine.

Seriously, isn’t gold the best color ever? Doesn’t it make everything seem shiny and new and GOOD? Just ask Karly. She insisted on giving two football helmets we scored at the thrift store the Midas touch. Stephen Johnson needs no help in that department; he’s already amassing a kitschy collection of gravity-defying gold-dipped goodies. And that bow covered snail butt just makes me laugh.

I’ve already blogged about China’s King of Bling, Lam Sai-Wing, and his solid gold palace (replete with solid gold toilet!), but there’s no need to be jealous of his glitzy digs. Check out these 24 karat covered tiles from Design Tale Studio and golden aluminum/laminate tiles spotted at trendir, and set the stage (ok, maybe only mentally!) for your own vision of victory.

Going for the gold is always about aiming high, right? While admiring the golden glow emanating from your environs, why not kick your feet up on Yves Klein’s gold shavings-filled coffee table? (Look for more posts on Klein craziness next week…)

Feeling prepped for success? Ready to win? Sense the sweet taste of proper thrashing coming in the next week or so? Make sure you take it all in on your gold-plated plasma tv and sound system.

Excuse me. I’ve got to go uncharacteristically berserk (not that going berserk is actually uncharacteristic. It’s just that this cheering thing is a little very new and different) and root for my team. Hunny Bunny is sure that I’m crazy, but, hell, I’m in it to win it! He really should know that by now. Not that I’m competitive or anything.