Yves Klein

Perhaps the best-known image of a fall, at least in the artworld, Yves Klein's 'Leap into the Void' from 1960. Although Klein fell into a tarpaulin, it must have been scary as hell, falling forward like that, and tarpaulin or not, the fall was real, crystallising a set of ideas in a physical act.

According to the write-up on the Centre Pompidou website, Klein was 'impregnating himself with the immaterial qualities of the void, so that he could transmit them to his artworks.' There is something so quixotic about this, in this sense similar to Kittinger, Bas Jan Ader, even Chaplin or Keaton. Everytime I see the image I oscillate between a sense of awe and wanting to laugh.

Paddy Jolley

This image really intrigues me. Who dropped the mattress, and from what height? The ceiling can't be that high so where is the person or machine that suspended the object before the fall? I like the irony too - we would normally expect something else to fall onto a mattress or mat.