Veronica Abdala
09/20/2021 5:00
Clarín.com
Culture
Updated 09/20/2021 8:12 AM
“It will be like a living object that will move with the wind and reflect light. With its mobile folds, the surface of the monument will become sensual.
People will want to touch the Arc de Triomphe
”, dreamed
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff
(Bulgaria 1935-New York 2020), one of the ideologues of this impressive setting, which adorns the Napoleonic monument that dominates the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. This is how the artist expressed himself shortly before his death, in the month of May 2020, at the age of 85.
The Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped) -
as the work is titled - will transform the vision of this strategic point of the city:
Parisians and tourists will see
the famous monument
completely wrapped
until 3 October
in blue and silver fabric:
in total, 25,000 square meters of recyclable silver blue polypropylene fabric and 3,000 meters of
recyclable
red polypropylene rope
.
It was also known that about 1,200 people participated in the construction and assembly, including volunteers, technicians, collaborators, and even mountaineers, firefighters and a historian.
Project.
The "wrapped" Arc de Triomphe planned by Christo The pandemic postponed its inauguration.
Some 1,200 people participated in the construction and assembly, including volunteers, technicians, collaborators, and even climbers, firefighters and a historian.
Thus, a long-overdue project is realized, since it is a montage
designed in 1961
by a couple of artists, now deceased.
The installation, which cost
14 million euros
(16.4 million dollars) and involves French organizations and some 30 companies, responds to
an original idea by Christo and his partner Jeanne-Claude
, and, according to the wishes of its creators , was assembled by his team in association with the Center for National Monuments (CMN) and with the support of the Center Pompidou and the city of Paris.
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and his project.
Instagram @cityhowwhy
To see the montage, visits will now be organized for almost three weeks;
in addition, during the weekends, the busy roundabout around the arch will be restricted to pedestrians.
Visitors to the monument will not only be able to see the shiny fabric, but
also touch it, as the artists intended.
Those who climb the stairs to reach the top, 50 meters (164 feet) high, will walk on it when they reach the terrace, which offers a panoramic view of the French capital.
The work is "a formidable gift offered to Parisians, the French and beyond, to all art lovers," French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said at a press conference to introduce
the project, titled
Arch of Triumph, wrapped up.
The story of a dream
Bulgarian-born
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff
met his partner,
Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon,
in Paris in 1958, and the two became lovers.
The idea for the play came about in the early 1960s, when they were living in Paris.
Bulgarian artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and his partner Jeanne-Claude.
AFP photo
In 1961, three years after meeting, Christo and Jeanne-Claude began creating
ephemeral works of art in public spaces
, temporary creations that involved draping public spaces known as the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris (the work which in 1985 put the duo into world orbit).
Or create huge, site-specific installations, like the 7,503-door series in New York City's Central Park or the 24.5-mile Running Fence in California.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Klaas Guchelaar (@kjguch)
In 1961, Christo imagined wrapping the Arc de Triomphe:
the idea haunted him since he settled in the French capital at the age of 23, fleeing the communist regime of his native Bulgaria.
In 1962-1963, he created a photomontage with
L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped
, seen from Avenue Foch, and again featured the
Arc de Triomphe Wrapped
in a collage in 1988. He began actively developing this project in 2017, which is now
sixty years old. later
, it finally comes to fruition.
Jeanne-Claude died in 2009 and Christo in May of last year.
The monument was due to wrap up last fall, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the setting.
Bachelot sadly referred to the deaths of the artists, describing the installation as
"a posthumous testimony of artistic genius."
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Larraine PH (@hobbitontherun)
Christo "wanted to complete this project. He made us promise that we would do it," the couple's nephew, Vladimir Yavachev, told
The Associated Press.
The Bulgarian artist, who had spent much of his life in Paris And in New York, he also said that the only thing he had wanted to do above all else was to complete this project: it was
his artistic obsession.
The project was funded this time by the sale of Christo's preliminary studies, drawings, scale models and other pieces of work, said Yavachev, who also plans to complete another of his unfinished projects: a mastaba - a pyramid-shaped tomb. truncated - 150 meters (492 feet) high in Abu Dhabi.
"We have the plans, we just have to do it," he anticipated.
Sources: AP, EFE, Artealdia.com, La Vanguardia
VA / PC
Look also
Augmented reality and digital art: an original photo display will come to life when you scan a QR code
They discover a new drawing by Vincent van Gogh from 1882