First is nothing, then there is a deep nothing, then there is a blue depth.
—Gaston Bachelard
After a jury rejected one of his monochromes for the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in 1955, the young Yves Klein was only emboldened to pursue his technical and visual innovations. In 1956, his first solo exhibition opened at the Galerie Colette Allendy in Paris. Comprising twenty monochromes in a range of sizes, textures, and colors, the unconventional display of unframed and untitled works demonstrated Klein's break with rules imposed by the art establishment. This freedom from what Klein called the "total dictatorship" of the Salon is evidenced in works made during this formative period. Untitled Blue Monochrome (IKB 108) exists as a dynamic proposition that extends beyond the confines of its support through the agency of pure color.
The year 1957 marked the beginning of Klein's self-proclaimed "Blue Period," which he inaugurated with the exhibition Proposte monochrome, epoca blu at the Galleria Apollinaire in Milan. Departing from the multiple hues of his early monochromes, Klein unveiled a resonant ultramarine that he named International Klein Blue, shortened to IKB. In the gallery's small room, he hung eleven identically sized IKB monochromes on stanchions that projected slightly out from the wall, such that the paintings seemed to hover in space. As an introduction to the exhibition, Pierre Restany wrote: "Reader, take note: what these monochrome propositions demand of you is that fragment of receptiveness which can make revolutions and bring down tyrants."