The world-renowned artist Christo died on May 31, aged 84, in his New York home. For more than half a century, Christo, with his wife Jeanne-Claude, created monumental sculptures, using the world as a gallery.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude become known for wrapping buildings and landmarks in fabric or plastic. One of the most memorable installations is from 1995 when the artist duo covered the Parliament House in Berlin with white fabric. They managed to turn the shrouded facade into a monumental sculpture, which became their signature aesthetic.
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The artist duo had a vision of transforming everyday life into works of art that made people stop and look at their surroundings with new perspective. Christo and Jeanne-Claude expanded the traditional boundaries of painting, sculpture and architecture and moved away from the sterile white walls of the exhibition halls to embrace the limitless exhibition space of the outdoors.
The couple met in Paris in 1958 and just three years later created their first large outdoor work in Cologne. The work consisted of stacked oil barrels covered with fabric. After Jeanne-Claude's death in 2009, Christo continued to make art out of his surroundings.
In the summer of 2016, visitors to Lake Iseo, Italy, took part in the 2.9-mile-long installation The Floating Piers, which consisted of over a million square feet of yellow shimmering fabric placed on polythene cubes.
Before his death, Christo had planned two more projects: L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (Project for Paris, Place de l'Étoile), the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe, and The Mastaba in Abu Dhabi, wrapping 410,000 oil barrels, which will be the world's largest sculpture, as well as Christo and Jeanne-Claude's only permanent work.
L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped was originally planned for fall 2020, but has been moved back to September 18, 2021 due to Covid-19.
None of the installations that the couple created are currently on display, but preparatory drawings and collages have been saved.
Christo's work revolutionized the concept of installation art and will live on long after his passing, giving people the opportunity to experience and appreciate the manmade and natural world in a new lens.
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