Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude (Christo Javacheff, 1935–2020, born Gabrovo, Bulgaria; Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, 1935–2009, born Casablanca, Morocco) were an artistic partnership whose monumental, temporary environmental installations transformed landscapes, buildings, and public spaces around the world into works of breathtaking scale, beauty, and conceptual clarity. Meeting in Paris in the late 1950s and working under Christo’s name alone before eventually crediting their projects jointly, they developed a practice built entirely on the wrapping, draping, and transformation of existing structures and terrains with fabric, creating works that existed for days or weeks before being removed without trace.
Their most celebrated projects include the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995, covered in silvery fabric for sixteen days before over five million visitors, the installation of The Gates in New York’s Central Park in 2005, comprising 7,503 saffron-coloured fabric panels suspended along twenty-three miles of pathway, and Surrounded Islands in Miami in 1983, in which eleven islands in Biscayne Bay were surrounded with floating pink fabric. Every project was funded entirely through the sale of preparatory drawings and collages, allowing Christo and Jeanne-Claude to retain complete creative independence throughout their careers. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009; Christo continued working until his death in 2020.
Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and institutions across the world.