Christo
Conceptual art has been created on many scales, but rarely on a scale as monumental as that of Christo's signature "wrapped" works. Born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff in 1935 in Bulgaria, he studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia, and then at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy. In 1958 he met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in Paris, who would become his wife and partner in art. That same year, he created his first wrapped piece: an empty paint tin wrapped in canvas decorated with paint and sand. Small-scale wrapped objects quickly gave way to larger-scale wrapping projects: custom-made storefronts in New York, a fountain and tower in Spoleto for the Festival of Two Worlds, and finally in 1968, the first complete building, the Bern Kunsthalle art museum. Christo and Jeanne-Claude expanded their work into landscape-scale environmental projects, such as Wrapped Coast in 1969, which wrapped the coast of Little Bay in Sydney, Australia; Valley Curtain in 1972, a 1,368 foot-long curtain hung across a valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains; and, Running Fence in 1976, a 24.5 mile-long canvas fence extending East-West down to the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay. Some of their projects, like Surrounded Islands, a wrapping of eleven islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay, are intended for contemplation from a distance; others, like Wrapped Walk Ways in Kansas City, invite spectators to walk thru the artistic space; yet others, like The Umbrellas in Japan and the USA, invite both modes of interaction. Throughout, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have emphasized both pleasure in the aesthetic experience, as well as new ways of looking at familiar objects. They also stress their independence and responsibility in the creation of their works, funding the costs via the sale of preparatory studies and other related art objects, and making sure that all materials used are recycled in some fashion. In 2005, their most recent project, The Gates, saw the light of day in New York City's Central Park. Over the course of sixteen days, visitors had a chance to walk through a warm landscape of saffron-colored fabric gates. While critical reaction to the work varied, visitors were unanimous in their verdict: never before had they seen so many happy New Yorkers in one place at the same time.
