See Christo and Jeanne-CLaude’s new temporary work : Arc de Triomphe Wrapped, Paris, 1961-2021
We first wrote about Christo and Jeanne-Claude in January, when Sotheby’s announced the sale of some of the artists’ work. Bulgarian Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Morrocan Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon met in Paris in 1958. In 1961, three years after they met in Paris, Christo and Jeanne-Claude began imagining and creating temporary works of art in public spaces. They would marry in 1962 and become one of the world’s most famous artistic collaborations.
In 1962-63, Christo created a photomontage of the Arc de Triomphe wrapped, seen from the Avenue Foch; then, in 1988, he created a collage, and in 2017, he began working again on the project. It was said that the couple didn’t even ask the French government for permission to go ahead with the project, believing they would never receive it, but in 2020 the permission was unexpectedly granted. Nearly 60 years later, the project has been realised.
Preparations for the temporary installation took about three months, but a time-lapse video shows that the installation’s fabric was unfurled from the top and guided to the bottom of one side of the monument in a single day. The enormous monument is now wrapped in 25,000 square meters of recyclable silvery-blue fabric, along with 3,000 meters of red rope. The installation will remain in place for 16 days, from September 18 to October 3, 2021.
When Jeanne-Claude passed away in November 2009, Christo continued to work on their projects, including this one. Unfortunately, he passed away in May of 2020, missing the realisation of his work by only a few months. He asked that the Arc de Triomphe project be completed posthumously.
L’Arc de Triomphe Empaqueté
Dates : September 18th – October 3rd 2021
Times : 10 am – 11 pm
“Wrapping the Arc de Triomphe in fabric might sound like a frivolous stunt. But this project, which has been in the making for over half a century, is anything but. In fact, we’d argue it’s the most important artistic statement of the decade so far.”
Learn more:
Why L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped is the most important artistic statement of the 2020s
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