Death of Christo, the artist who packed the Pont-Neuf

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One of the big names in contemporary art, died at the age of 84, in New York, where he lived. Of Bulgarian origin, Christo had made a specialty of packaging monuments all over the world. A work built with his wife, disappeared in 2009.

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Christo will not have had time to see his last work completed. The artist had planned to pack the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris, of 25,000 square meters of polypropylene, tied by seven kilometers of red rope. The monumental work was to be visible in September of this year. It had been pushed back to September 2021. With the packaging of the Arc de Triomphe, the circle had to be closed, in a way, in the career of Christo.

An artistic duo

The idea for the work dates back to the early 1960s. It was at this time that Christo Javacheff gradually abandoned painting for monumental contemporary art.

Born in Bulgaria in 1935, trained at the Beaux-Arts in Sofia under the communist regime, Christo does not really accept the canons of socialist realism. The artist takes the path of exile: Vienna then Paris. It was there that he met Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon with whom he formed the artistic duo Christo. To her, the organization of exhibitions, monumental works; to him, the pencil stroke.

"  Space interlining  "

Islands surrounded by fuchsia ribbons in the bay of Miami, the Pont-Neuf in Paris wrapped in yellow ocher plastic in 1985, the Berlin Reichstag in silver paper in 1995… The ephemeral works, sometimes contested, mark the spirits, requiring years of design and millions of dollars to last only a few days.

When Christo was asked what guided him, with his crown of curly white hair, he replied, quite recently, "  Freedom." "

Ephemeral and "spectacular" works"

For French Minister of Culture Franck Riester, "  spectacular, the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude marked our collective memory  ". "  Capable of" revealing by hiding "the monuments, their creations have accompanied the history of our time,  " he tweeted.

For Serge Lasvignes, President of the Center Pompidou in Paris, Christo was a "  enchanting  ". “He  was also a magnificent person combining audacity, determination and a deep humanity. A retrospective is planned from July 1 at the Center Pompidou. It had been postponed due to the coronavirus.

It is with great emotion and immense sadness that we learn of the disappearance of Christo with whom we had passionately worked for the exhibition “Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Paris! " It will open on July 1 and pay tribute to his exceptional work. pic.twitter.com/D9zfd3lnWG

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