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Apollo
Art Diary

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Paris!

26 June 2020

While many museums remain shuttered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are now reopening as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in Paris in 1958, where they lived for six years before departing for New York. This exhibition, which opens just over a month after Christo’s death at the age of 84, considers how the pair’s artworks from this formative period prefigured their later large-scale works. It also tells the decade-long story of the only major public project they completed for Paris in their lifetimes: wrapping the Pont Neuf entirely in fabric (1975–85). The exhibition, which runs from 1 July to 19 October, is a prelude to the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe – a lifelong ambition of Christo’s, which will be realised in September. Find out more from the Centre Pompidou’s website; you can also read Claire Barliant’s interview with Christo from the March 2020 issue of Apollo here.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

Wrapping of Paul Niclausse’s statue Le Printemps, Trocadéro Esplanade, Paris, February 14, 1964 (1964), Christo.

Wrapping of Paul Niclausse’s statue Le Printemps, Trocadéro Esplanade, Paris, February 14, 1964 (1964), Christo. Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Fonds Shunk et Kender/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais; © Christo

Temporary Wall of Oil Barrels – The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 27 June 1962 (1962), Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Temporary Wall of Oil Barrels – The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 27 June 1962 (1962), Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo: © Jean-Dominique Lajoux; © Christo

Purple Store Front (1964), Christo. Photo: © Wolfgang Volz; © Christo

The Pont-Neuf Wrapped (1975–85), Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo: © Wolfgang Volz; © Christo