The temporary and spectacular installations of the American plastic artist of Bulgarian origin Christo appeared in different corners of the globe, in distant landscapes as in emblematic places of big cities.
Here are six of the most famous:
"The wall of oil barrels", Paris (1962)
One of the first works by Christo and his wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude is a wall of 89 barrels of oil and petrol erected in a street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Titled “The Iron Curtain”, this “artistic barricade was their way of protesting against the Berlin Wall built a year earlier.
The mayor of Paris had not given its authorization but the two artists had nevertheless continued their work, blocking traffic for eight hours before having to dismantle the installation.
From "Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Paris!" Pompidou Center Public Information Library
Le Pont-Neuf, Paris, from (September 22 to October 7, 1985)
The Pont-Neuf project, 140 m long and 20.5 m wide, dates back to the mid-1970s. It required 40,000 m2 of canvas - which changes in appearance depending on the level of the sun in the sky - 12 tonnes of steel cables, the intervention of 300 specialized professionals led by 12 engineers.
The work is presented to spectators for fourteen days. The artist wants to offer a fresh look at the oldest bridge in Paris.
But it will be very difficult to organize. Beyond, finances that must be gathered. It is also necessary to obtain authorizations. We first had to convince the mayor of Paris. Madame Pompidou, who has always been a collector of Christo's works, has turned in favor of the artist. Things went smoothly and failed to fail, but in 1984 Jacques Chirac gave his final agreement. As Jean-Marie Tasset writes in Le Figaro describing this installation: “Christo may be a megalomaniac artist, but he is also an organizer and a very courteous man since he says: '' It is my project more urban! ''
Pont-Neuf model "packaged" by Christo AFP
Christo with Jack Lang under Le Pont-Neuf. AFP
“The umbrellas”, United States and Japan (1991)
Nearly 3,100 giant umbrellas were opened the same day in California and Japan for a simultaneous installation which will last 18 days, after months of work.
Almost half of the six-meter-tall umbrellas were blue and installed in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan; the rest in California were bright yellow.
The installation "reflected the similarities and differences in lifestyles and land use in the two interior valleys in Japan and the United States," said the artists.
Artsy online magazine described the work as "one of the greatest projects on Earth of our time . " But the project was marked by two tragedies: in 1991, an American was crushed by a giant umbrella and a Japanese worker died during the dismantling of these same umbrellas.
- Reichstag packaging, Berlin (1995)
Wrapped in a silvery fabric totaling 100,000 m2, the packaging of the German parliament, emblematic work of Christo, could not be carried out until twenty years after the artist had asked for authorization.
Rejected by Berlin on numerous occasions, the work came to fruition after a vote in parliament in 1994.
"It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen," Christo told the British daily The Guardian in 2017.
Visited by millions of people, the packaging was removed after two weeks when the city wanted to keep it a little longer.
Reichstag model "packaged" by Christo in 1995. Benoît Doppagne / Belga / AFP
“The floating jetties”, Italy (2016)
Created on the Italian lake of Iseo, "The Floating Piers", was an ephemeral installation three kilometers long and composed of an assembly of 200,000 yellow cubes of high density polyethylene installed on the lake.
These walkways allowed visitors to reach the island of Monte Isola and the islet of San Paolo on the lake, giving them the impression of walking on the water "or maybe on the back of a whale" , said Christo. This sixteen-day installation was Christo's first after the death of his wife Jeanne-Claude in 2009, even though the two had designed it together and worked on it since 1970.
Walk on water or on the back of the whale. It was Christo's dream. MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP
"The London Mastaba" (2018)
Artist Christo unveils his latest work, a mastaba (Egyptian funerary building) floating on Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park in London. A monumental installation, made up of 7,506 metal cans, intended as much to spark debate as to "stimulate the senses" .
"There is no message: it is up to everyone to discover something," Christo told AFP.
Artist Christo in front of his Mastaba floating on Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park in London. Niklas HALLE'N / AFP
