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Christo and Jeanne-Claude: We don't do wrap
Early next year they will erect a series of 7,500 gates hung with fabric around New York City's Central Park. So they don't just wrap things. But it is also true that much of the world hears the name Christo and thinks immediately of wrapping, for he and she have sometimes wrapped very big things - the Reichstag building in Berlin, say, in 1995, or the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1969 - in an expression of their unusual and playful environmental art. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were in Portland this weekend for the opening of a show at the Portland Art Museum about their 10-year project, from 1975 to 1985, to wrap the Pont Neuf, a four-century-old bridge at the heart of Paris. "We wanted to do something deeply related to culture," Christo explains about the Pont Neuf. "So we tried to find a landmark deeply related to art. Curiously enough the Pont Neuf is the most painted object in the history of art." Like his wife, Christo is 69 years old. They were born an hour apart, they tell you, on June 13, 1935. He is thin, dark haired and intense, and talks in measured, careful sentences. She has hair that's nearly punk in its redness and is constantly correcting his minor fumbles in English. They have lived at the same address in New York City for 40 years. "We met in 1958 in Paris," Jeanne-Claude explains. "Because in 1958 a young Bulgarian refugee name Christo Javacheff had to pay his rent and had to eat. And he couldn't sell his early works, his wrapped objects and packages. He was washing dishes to make money. That was his second job. And he had a third job - painting oil portraits, which he signed `Javacheff.' 'Christo had studied art in Bulgaria and later in Vienna. He knew how to draw and paint. "One day," Jeanne-Claude continues, "he came to paint my mother's portrait. He completed her classical portrait. Then he completed her impressionist portrait. Then he completed her cubist portrait. By then we were in love." Christo and Jeanne-Claude say they have worked together on all the projects that, for many years, were presented to the public in his name only. In 1993 they decided to add her name to the credit line. Their art is like little else the world has seen. The word "artist" hardly seems to cover all that they do. They are more like movie directors or producers, turning unusual visions into enormous temporary events that cut across time, geography, vision, culture and politics. The cost can be extraordinary. Wrapping the Pont Neuf cost $3.5 million. Putting up those umbrellas in California and Japan cost $26 million. As they do on all their projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude footed the bills themselves, generating money by selling early sketches and plans of the project along the way. They have a Swiss warehouse full of material from their 18 completed projects; they use it as collateral for bank loans. They are, in fact, almost brittle in their independence. They don't take grants. They don't accept commissions. They don't use volunteer labor. They won't even consider doing other people's ideas. "The best way to kill a project is to propose it to us," Jeanne-Claude says. "You would never marry someone your mother proposes to you, would you?" The Portland exhibit opens with mural-sized color photographs of the completed Pont Neuf project, surrounding a large and elegant scale model of the wrapped bridge. From there you plunge into the dark heart of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's art: the sometimes difficult process of obtaining permission (think French bureaucracy) to do the things they do. Photographs of meetings with French officials are displayed next to many, many letters. More gratifying to see are actual pieces of the structure that held the wrapping on the Pont Neuf, along with Christo's ever-evolving plans for the project. Because it's a cultural landmark, the bridge had to be treated with kid gloves, almost literally. Metal supports for the thousands of yards of fabric are padded with rubber feet, so as not to mar the stone. Alpine climbers hired to scale the bridge and hang the fabric wore socks over their boots to prevent smudges. Some statistics: The project used 450,000 square feet of fabric, 43,900 feet of rope, 12.1 tons of steel chain, 5,500 yards of steel cables, 88 tons of concrete ballast and 13.2 tons of steel framework. About 400 people were hired to create the wrapping and to wrap the bridge; another 660 monitored the work until the fabric was removed. The wrapping was completed on Sept. 22, 1985, and stayed on view for only two weeks. That very ephemerality is essential to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work. "Nothing is permanent on this planet. Absolutely nothing," Jeanne-Claude says. "Our works are very fragile," Christo says. "There is a nomadic quality to our projects. In a matter of a few days, a whole site is transformed. And when it is over it will never be there again." Jeanne-Claude explains it this way. Artists over the centuries have used many different qualities to express their vision. "But there is one quality they have never used - and that is the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for that which will be lost." "We love that expression, `Once in a lifetime,' ' Christo says. "And we enjoy the words, `Once upon a time,' ' his wife echoes. Sept. 12, 2004 |
All text and images copyright 2006 Bob Keefer
