Yves Klein's Cannibal Feast: From Mondo Cane to the Walker Art Center

José Díaz Cuyás's essay for Afterall reexamines Yves Klein's infamous participation in the 1962 shockumentary Mondo Cane, arguing that the film's cannibalistic logic is central to understanding Klein's work. Klein staged an anthropometry session for the film in July 1961, but the final cut reduced his 20-minute sequence to five minutes, replaced his music, and added lascivious gestures. He left the Cannes premiere humiliated and suffered a heart attack that evening, dying on June 6, 1962. Cuyás contends that Klein's concept of the 'anthropophagic era'—a utopian state of collective leisure beyond labor—mirrors the 'cannibal economy' of mass tourism and exploitation cinema. The essay traces Klein's legal battle with Claude Chabrol over a parody in Les Godelureaux (1961) and compares his 'void' to Alain Robbe-Grillet's immanent void in Glissements progressifs du plaisir (1974). Cuyás notes that the Walker Art Center's acquisition of Suaire de Mondo Cane (1961) continues the cannibalistic appropriation of Klein's legacy.