Paris (AFP)

Christo, the master of packaging, wanted his works to be seen as "the expression of total, irrational freedom, free from any justification."

Before the Arc de Triomphe, the artist and his wife Jeanne-Claude sublimated other natural or cultural monuments.

Here are five examples.

- "Wrapped coast" in Sydney (1969) -

The couple chose the coast of "Little Bay", a cliff 2.5 kilometers south of Sydney swept by the Pacific Ocean.

It is the first time that they have attacked a natural space.

They select a thick, white synthetic fabric, used by farmers, capable of withstanding waves and salty sea water.

Christo is piloting the installation of his titanic installation requiring some 93,000 m2 of fabric, 56 kilometers of rope, fifteen climbers and a hundred artists and architects.

Inaugurated on October 28, 1969, the packaging lasts ten weeks.

"The urgency to be seen is all the greater as tomorrow everything will be gone ... No one can buy these works, no one can own them, no one can market them, no one can sell tickets to see them ... Our work is about freedom, "says Christo.

- Museum of Modern Art in Chicago (1969) -

In 1969, Christo set his sights on the Chicago Museum of Modern Art: he was won over by its packaging-structure in the shape of a shoebox.

It is his first American work.

In 1967, Christo had already got his hands on the Kunsthalle in Bern, his first packaging of a public building.

This time, he chooses a khaki tarp to contrast with the snow that covers the city in winter.

Alarmed by the strange installation, the firefighters demand that the tarp be dismantled before finally accepting that it remains.

- The packaging of Pont-Neuf (1985) -

In 1975, Christo embarked on the project of transfiguring the Pont Neuf, "the cradle of the capital and a great subject in the history of art", he explains.

"Packaged, it passes from the status of a subject of art to that of a work".

Christo poses in front of the model of his Pont Neuf packaging project in Paris on November 5, 1981. Michel CLEMENT AFP

Mayor Jacques Chirac was initially reluctant but the couple led an intense persuasion campaign for ten years.

Forty thousand square meters of canvas are woven in Germany and stitched in Armentières in the North.

Divers, rope access technicians, mountaineers: 400 people work together to stretch 11 kilometers of rope under the dumbfounded eyes of Parisians.

"I want to offer another perspective and other habits to the public, accustomed to an unchanging space for centuries", launches Christo.

"It is about rediscovering the architecture of the bridge by emphasizing the reliefs (...) provoking a new conceptual and sensory impact".

The Pont Neuf remains packed for 15 days.

- The packaging of the Reichstag, Berlin (1995) -

Wrapped in a silver fabric of 100,000 m2, the packaging of the German parliament was not realized until twenty years after Christo's first request for authorization.

Rejected several times by Berlin, the work could only see the light of day after a vote in parliament in 1994.

The artist rents the Reichstag but also a perimeter of five hundred meters around the building to ensure that no company uses the space during its installation.

"Each project is very biographical", he confides to the Center Pompidou.

"I escaped from Bulgaria during the Cold War. (...) The Reichstag is the only physical space where the Soviet bloc met the West, it is the only place where East and West met. I met in Berlin (...) It is for this reason that I wanted to package it ".

Visited by millions of people, the packaging is removed after two weeks.

Berlin would have liked to keep it longer.

"It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen," Christo told The Guardian.

- The trees of the Beyeler museum in Riehen in Switzerland (1997) -

For many years, Christo and Jeanne-Claude packed trees.

In 1997, they covered the 160 trees of the Beyeler museum in Switzerland with a transparent polyester fabric mixed with silvery fibers.

Their idea is to veil the better to reveal.

Trees are transformed into changing objects.

These incongruous appearances make it possible to make visible the wind which rushes into the fabric.

© 2021 AFP