If I can get sued by the Yves Klein estate you can too.

How freedom of expression and trademarks collide to curb creativity.

It was about half past three in the afternoon. It had been a busy day in the studio, sculptures being finished for a public art project, paintings being photographed, and new art materials being tested.

My phone vibrated, my accountant. “Someone’s just turned up with a letter from the court. Shall I open it, or will you come and get it?”

There’s a sense of dread that kicks in when something like that happens. Life’s plodding along just fine, then out of nowhere, a slippery banana skin-shaped curveball.

Half an hour later, I’m back with the letter. A deep breath later, and there it is, a letter in French from some kind of court in Paris.

The name at the top, Yves Klein’s son.

I’d clearly been sued for something, and it looks like I lost.

And on the last page, a number. Tens of thousands of Euros. Looks like I owe them a small fortune that I don’t have.

Let’s backtrack a little bit so we can move forward, and you can get an idea of what’s happened.

So, Yves Klein, a very famous and very important conceptual artist. You may know him for his powdery blue paintings, just a single colour, gorgeous loads of depth, all about spirituality and the void. Abstract and brilliant. I first saw one when I was about 10, wandering around the Tate with my mum. We got home with a print of it, and it lived in the house.

But that wasn’t all he did. He was a proper avant-garde artist. He worked with bodies as paintbrushes, making giant prints with them. He even sold the empty space in a room in exchange for a certificate which was then burned and dumped in the river. And you thought the nothingness of NFTs was weird?

Well, Klein was one of my heroes. But the thing about him was that BLUE. Klein’s blue, International Klein Blue, as he called it. Made by a paint maker in Paris, one of his mates. Using acrylic resin and rich, deep ultramarine blue pigment. The perfect formulation. He was so pleased with it, he even patented the formula. Not to exclude people from it, but to register his work and protect it. He was about freedom of expression, not oppression.

The deal with ultramarine is interesting. The stuff comes from rocks of lapis lazuli, initially bought through the Silk Road and purified by artists who made work for royalty and the church. Getting the blue out of the rocks was a bit of an alchemical art, with the first extraction being purer and more special. The stuff was so expensive and complicated that we’re left with unfinished Michelangelo paintings because he ran out! Anyway, in old paintings, we see it all on its own, not mixed with anything. It’s used for very important stuff only. Then, relatively recently, a competition was launched to crack making a synthetic version. Someone won, and we got synthetic ultramarine. Then it totally takes over art, it becomes the blue that’s mixed in with stuff. You don’t get those Renoir paintings without that, or the shadows in Impressionist paintings either.

Anyway, let’s get back to the story. Klein made an acrylic paint with his mate, and acrylic resins were pretty new in those days, so they were a bit rubbish.

You can’t really buy his paint because, although the guy in Paris sells a kit, it’s not great. The original ingredients aren’t around anymore, and frankly, acrylics and pigments have gotten alot better over time. It’s not a paint that’s very stable or fun to use. It’s tricky.

So, I spent about 10 years working on my own blue paint, similar surface, deep, powdery, ridiculously matte. My idea was to share it with anyone who wanted to make work with some. And loads of people have used what I made on sculptures, paintings, and walls. I do it for the love and challenge of it, on a not-for-profit basis. I just put the cash back into making more stuff for artists. For me, it’s an artwork in itself.

Artists in the past made their own paints in their studios, I do too. The only difference is that I share the paint we make with everyone rather than guarding it.

So, I made this paint, and I called mine “Incredibly Kleinish Blue.” I designed a box for it that looked like a Calvin Klein perfume. And I called mine EK rather than CK, and I even scented it like a Calvin Klein CK perfume. I painted my hand with the stuff and took a photo of it and popped it online and thought no more about it.

Seems like Yves Klein’s son wasn’t amused.

Back in my studio, thankfully, I found a translated version of the court order. There had been a hearing in Paris. I knew nothing about it. I wasn’t invited. No letters, no emails. Not a single DM on my Insta. Just that I’d lost.

The Klein estate owns a trademark for ‘Yves Klein,’ and although they don’t own “Klein” on its own, they managed to convince the judge that my use of the word “Klein” on the box was close enough to shut me down.

I want to be clear. They didn’t sue me for making blue paint. They didn’t sue me for using a color. They sued me for using the word “Klein.” And for painting my hand blue because Yves did that once.

So, I got busy. I trademarked “International Semple Blue” (ISB) and launched a GoFundMe so that I can pay the legal bills to appeal this crazy situation.

The difference with my trademark is that anyone can use it on anything for free. I don’t care. The more, the merrier.

As for Yves’ son? I guess I’ll be seeing him in court, and I want to know why he’s turned his father’s illustrious legacy into a nasty, litigous nightmare.