Outline

Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) were active as a couple, as the artistic unit Christo and Jeanne-Claude, undertaking grand-scale projects around the world. They were particularly known for projects in which they wrapped buildings with sheet-like material and cord.

A native of Bulgaria, Christo attended National Academy of Art in Sofia, where he studied a wide range of courses in painting, sculpture, architecture and decorative art. After fleeing in exile to Vienna in 1957, he went on to Geneva, the next year and then to Zurich, where he began making “wrapped objects” consisting of things like cans and bottles wrapped in fabric. That same year he moved to Paris, where he made a living taking orders for portraits, which was how he met Jeanne-Claude, the daughter of one of his clients. As fate would have it, the two found they shared the same birthdate, June 13, 1935, and before long they decided to spend their lives together.

From the year 1961, together they were conceiving a diverse range of projects, which they were funding with money from the sales of scale models, collages, etc. that Christo created during the project conception process. The Christo works in the Museum’s collection are such pieces created to raise money to fund their projects.

The special exhibit this time introduces a group of 16 works from the Museum’s collection. Among them is a work from the early conceptual stage of the project L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped that is planned for this autumn in Paris and ones from the idea stage of projects that never saw the light of day. We take this opportunity to display works showing images of the idealized completion of a variety of grand-scale Christo and Jeanne-Claude projects along with outlines of the concepts behind them.