Artist

Christo

born Gabrovo, Bulgaria 1935-died New York City 2020
Media - portrait_image_114978.jpg - 138819
Meet the Artist: Christo
Also known as
  • Christo Javacheff
  • Christo Vladimirov Javacheff
Born
Gabrovo, Bulgaria
Died
New York, New York, United States
Active in
  • Paris, France
Biography

1935
Christo: American Bulgarian-born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, June 13, Gabrovo, of a Bulgarian industrialist family.

Jeanne-Claude: American, French-born Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, June 13, 1935, Casablanca, of a French military family, educated in France and Switzerland.


1952
Jeanne-Claude. Baccalaureat in Latin and Philosophy, University of Tunis.


1953-56
Christo: Studies at Fine Arts Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria.


1957
He studies one semester at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy.


1958
Christo arrives in Paris where he meets Jeanne-Claude.
Packages and Wrapped Objects


1960
Birth of their son, Cyril, May 11. Cyril Christo is a poet. He studied at Cornell University and graduated from Columbia University in 1982. Five books of his poems have been published. In 1998 he married Marie B. Wilkinson. Their son Lysander Christo was born September 22, 2005.


1961
Project for the Wrapping of a Public Building
Stacked Oil Barrels, Dockside Packages at Cologne Harbor. Tarpaulin and rope.
Duration: 2 weeks. Their first collaboration.


1962
Iron Curtain-Wall of Oil Barrels, Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961-1962. 240 barrels. Height: 4. 3 meters (14 feet). Width: 3. 8 meters (13 feet). Depth: 1. 7 meters (5 feet 6 inch).
Duration: 8 hours.

Stacked Oil Barrels, Gentilly, near Paris.

Wrapped Woman 1962

Showcases.


1963
Store Fronts and Show Windows


1964
Establishment of permanent residence in New York City.


1966
Air Package 1966. Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Rubberized canvas balloon and rope Diameter: 5.18 meters (17 feet.).
Duration: One month.

Wrapped Tree 1966.

42,390 Cubicfeet Package 1966 at the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis School of Art. Length:18 meters (60 feet) Polyethylene: 720 square meters (8,000 square feet). Manila rope: 914 meters (3,000 feet)
Duration: Three days.


1968
Wrapped Fountain and Wrapped Medieval Tower, Spoleto, Italy. Polyethylene and ropes.
Duration: 3 weeks.

Wrapping of a Public Building, Wrapped Junsthalle Berne 1967-1968. Fabric: 2,430 square meters (27,000 square feet.) Rope: 3,050 meters (10,000 feet.)
Duration: 7 days.

5,600 Cubicmeter Package, Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany 1967-1968. An Air Package 82 meters (280 feet) high, six concrete foundations arranged in a 275 meter (900 foot) diameter circle. Fabric: 1,980 square meters (22,000 square feet) Weight: 6,350 kilograms (14,000 pounds). Rope: 3,657 meters (12,000 feet)
Duration: two and a half months.

Corridor Store Front. total area: 135 square meters (1,500 square feet).

1,240 Oil Barrels Mastaba, and Two Tons of Stacked Hay. Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art.


1969
Wrapped Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Tarpaulin. 900 square meters (10,000 square feet) and rope.
Duration: 40 days.

Wrapped Floor and Stairway, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. House painter's cotton drop cloths, 252 square meters (2,800 square feet) and rope.
Duration: 40 days.

Wrapped Coast, Little Bay. One Million Square Feet, Sydney, Australia. Erosion Control fabric: 90,000 square meters (1,000,000 square feet) and 58 kilometers. (36 miles) of ropes. Duration: Two months.


1970
Wrapped Monuments, Milano: Monument to Vittorio Emanuele, Piazza del Duomo, Milano, Italy. Polyethylene and rope.
Duration: Two days.

Monument to Leonardo da Vinci, Piazza della Scala, Milano, Italy. Polyethylene and rope.
Duration: Seven days.


1971
Wrapped Floors, Covered Windows and Wrapped Walk Ways, Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany. House painter's cotton drop cloths.
Duration: 30 days.


1972
Valley Curtain, Grand Hogback, Rifle, Colorado. 1970-1972. Width: 381-417 meters (1,250-1,368 feet). Height: 56-111 meters (185-365 feet). Nylon polyamide fabric: 12,780 square meters (142,000 square feet). Steel cables: 49,895 kilograms (110,000 pounds); 800 tons of concrete.
Duration: 28 hours.


1974

The Wall, Wrapped Roman Wall, Via V. Veneto and Villa, Borghese, Rome, Italy. Polypropylene fabric and Dacron rope. Height: 15 meters (49 feet). Length: 250 meters (820 feet). Width varying between: 4 and 5,5 meters (13 to 18 feet).
Duration: 40 days.

Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island. Surface: 128 x 97 meters (450 x 320 feet). 13,500 square meters (150,000 square feet) polypropylene fabric floating over the ocean.
Duration: 8 days.


1976

Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-1976. 5.5 meters. (18 feet ) high, 39.4 kilometers (24-1/2 miles) long, crossing 14 roads. 2,050 fabric panels: 192 square meters (240,000 square yards) of woven nylon fabric suspended from 144 kilometers (90 miles) of steel cables. 2,080 steel poles, each: 9 cm. (3-1/2 inch) diameter, 6.4 meters (21 feet long).
Duration: 14 days.


1977
The Mastaba, Project for United Arab Emirates.


1978
Wrapped Walk Ways, Loose Park, Kansas City, Missouri, 1977-1978. 12,000 square meters (15,000 square yards) of woven nylon fabric over 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles of walkways.
Duration: 14 days.


1983
Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-1983. Pink woven polypropylene fabric floating around eleven islands: 585,000 square meters (6.5 million square feet).
Duration: 14 days.


1984
Wrapped Floors and Stairways and Covered Windows, Architecture Museum, Basel, Switzerland. House painter's cotton drop cloths.
Duration: 30 days.


1985
The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-1985. 40,876 square meters (454,178 square feet) woven polyamide fabric. 13,076 meters (42,900 feet ) of rope.
Duration: 14 days.


1991
The Umbrellas, Japan-USA, 1984-1991. 1,340 blue umbrellas in Ibaraki, Japan; 1,760 yellow umbrellas in California. Each umbrella: height: 6 meters (19 ft 8 in), diameter: 8.66 meters (28 ft 6 in). Valley size in Japan: Length: 19 kilometers (12 miles). Width: 4 kilometers (2. 5 miles). Valley size in USA: Length: 29 kilometers (18 miles). Width: 4 kilometers ( 2. 5 miles)
Duration: 18 days.


1992
Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, Colorado.


1995
Wrapped Floors and Stairways and Covered Windows 1995. Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany. House painter's cotton drop cloth on the floor and stairs and brown wrapping paper on the glass of the windows.
Duration: 3 months.

Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-1995. 100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of polypropylene fabric. 15,600 meters (51,181 feet) of rope and 200 metric tons of steel.
Duration: 14 days.


1998
Wrapped Trees, Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park, Riehen-Basel, Switzerland,1997-1998. 178 trees. 53,283 square meters (592,034 square feet) of woven polyester fabric, 23 kilometers (14.3 miles) of rope. Duration: 21 days.

1999
The Wall, 13,000 Oil Barrels, Gasometer, Oberhausen, Germany, 1998-1999. An indoor installation. Height: 26 meters (85 feet). Width: 68 meters (223 feet). Depth: 7.23 meters (24 feet).
Duration: 6 months.


2005

The Gates, Central Park, New York City,1979-2005. 7,503 vinyl gates, with free-flowing nylon fabric panels, anchored to 15,006 steel bases on 37 kilometers (twenty-three miles) of walkways.


Videos

Exhibitions

Media - 2009.9.18 - SAAM-2009.9.18_1 - 70302
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence
April 2, 2010September 26, 2010
The exhibition presented the majority of individual items— more than 350 objects—from the collective archive of artworks and related materials.

Related Books

christo_500.jpg
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence
The dynamic partnership of Christo and Jeanne-Claude spans more than four decades, and their enormous outdoor art installations are known the world over. From 1972 to 1976, Christo and Jeanne-Claude conceived, planned, and created the Running Fence, an eighteen-foot-high white nylon fence that stretched more than twenty-four miles across privately owned lands in Marin and Sonoma counties in northern California. Four years in the planning, the Fence was on view for just two weeks, but it remains a landmark event in contemporary art.