Shunk’s photograph of Klein’s leap is in fact a mock-up, an image faked through the device of montage. The site where the event took place, in Fontenay-des-Roses, was chosen because it was next-door to a judo club, many of the members of which were known to Klein. Twelve of these judokas were persuaded to hold a tarpaulin beneath him and to catch his body as he leapt into space a number of times, to ensure that the camera caught him in the position that he wished to record. Klein went to these lengths because he believed he had in fact successfully levitated, and briefly flown, in a true “leap into the void” carried out some months before… During the weeks and months that followed, Klein became increasingly depressed and irritated, because almost no one believed in his “leap”. He subsequently tried it a couple of times in public, jumping over a table on one occasion and leaping down a stairwell at the Rive Droite Gallery on another; but only succeeded in damaging his shoulder and fuelling the scepticism of his friends.
