Christo
1935-2020
Christo became world famous with his extraordinary disguises in gigantic dimensions.
Christo was born on June 13, 1935 as Christo Javacheff in Gabrovo (Bulgaria), the son of an industrialist family. From 1953 to 1956 Christo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia and in 1956 went to Prague. The following year, Christo attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1958 he went to Paris where his first Packages and "Wrapped Objects" emerged.
Since 1961 Christo and Jeanne-Claude created a worldwide furore with their spectacular wrapping projects. In particular, the planned in 1971 project "Wrapped Reichstag" became an art event in 1995.
For 2005, the following project was prepared: "The Gates, Project for Central Park, New York City." The 23-mile (37 km) walkways in Central Park were bridged with 7532 gates, 4.87 m high and up to 5.48 m wide. Free-hanging, orange fabric panels suspended from the horizontal top part of the steel gates down to 2.13 m above the ground. A seething, billowing, incomparable spectacle. After 16 days everything was over. What remains is the memory of a lost landscape.
Another Christo's project is "Times Square". Times Square is located in the center of New York's Theatre District, a cultural focal point of the world with over 30 musical venues. On this subject, Christo created the collage artwork "Wrapped Building - Project for Times Square" with a handcrafted and tight material and individual overpainting.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude (died in November 2009 in New York) reject vigorously the sponsorship from public or private sources and insist that their projects can only be realized on a time-limited basis. This leads to an unusual concept: only the sale of plan sketches, models and drawings enable the conversion and only they finally document it. A Christo is therefore an artwork in its own right and also a larger component and, last but not least, the testimony of a creative process. Christo died in 2020.
