PARIS—It is now half a century since Yves Klein organized what was almost certainly the world’s first “empty” exhibition — where absolutely nothing was shown — at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris in 1958. To mark the anniversary, the Centre Pompidou has organized an exhibition showcasing 50 years of empty art exhibitions, on view through March 23 (it also travels to the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, September 10 – October 11, 2009). The show has inevitably proved controversial, with many commentators predictably dismissing it as an empty gimmick. But, as its curators point out, the notion of emptiness raises serious questions: What are the limits of an exhibition? Or in other words, what is the exact definition of the term? What role does the container — the museum or gallery — play? And what about the visitors — can they themselves constitute an “exhibition”? Moreover, the Centre Pompidou show raises a further point, namely, to what extent can one successfully re-create ephemeral happenings?

Whatever one’s opinion, the idea of an empty exhibition is an extreme beyond which it is difficult to go. As with so much other radical art since the 1960s, one can make a case for laying the original inspiration, or blame, squarely at the feet of Marcel Duchamp. The “inventor” of the readymade — and consequently the grandfather of enough dubious installation works to fill several Centres Pompidou — Duchamp was the first to demonstrate the role played by the museum or gallery in determining what gets to be called “art.” He was also among the first to point the way toward the minimalist extreme of empty art with his 1919 piece Air de Paris (original lost), whose title encouraged the observer to consider not the 50cc glass ampoule of which it consisted, but rather its content, which was, of course, absolutely nothing. Another precursor often cited is Kasimir Malevich, whose Suprematist works such as Black Square (1915) and the famous "White on White" series (1918) led him firmly toward a dead end as far as painting was concerned. But while one could still conceivably display either the Malevich or Duchamp pieces in one’s living room, one would have a hard time exhibiting the “works” featured in the Centre Pompidou’s show at home — short of emptying it completely and charging admission at the door. And, as the Pompidou’s curators freely admit, their “re-creations” of historic empty exhibitions may be an even more extreme case of the emperor’s new clothes than were the originals, to the extent that many of the latter were arguably place- and/or circumstance-specific. So, to spare our readers potential disappointment were they tempted to stir forth from their armchairs, here is ARTINFO’s own retrospective of the top five historical exhibitions of absolutely nothing.

1. Yves Klein: The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, Galerie Iris Clert, Paris, 1958
The mother of them all, this show became an overnight legend, essentially due to Klein’s masterly manipulation of communications and publicity, very much in the spirit of Dada antics 30 years before. This exhibition was above all an event, with an elaborate opening staged on the evening of Klein’s 30th birthday. Over 3,000 invitations were sent out — with illegal stamps in Klein’s trademark blue — while the uninvited were expected to pay an entrance fee of 1,500 francs. On arriving at the gallery — located, fittingly, on the Rue des Beaux-Arts — visitors found its windows had been “blued out” (again in Klein’s trademark color) so that the interior could not be seen from outside, and the usual entrance was closed in favor of a more circuitous route via a side door. There gallerygoers were met by two Republican Guards in full uniform and offered a cocktail: gin and Cointreau colored with methylene blue. They were then ushered into the gallery space in small groups. And what did they find once inside? A room freshly painted white, with a gray carpet on the floor and a white curtain that both dissimulated and drew attention to the service door. And nothing else. Meanwhile, outside, the waiting crowd rapidly swelled, and by 10 p.m., a near riot of several thousand had to be dispersed by the police and the fire brigade.