ART-PRESENTATION: Christo & Jeanne Claude -Water Projects

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were both born on June 13, 1935, he in Bulgaria, she in Morocco. They met in Paris in 1958 when Christo was commissioned to paint a portrait of Jeanne-Claude’s mother. Since that time they have collaborated on an impressive oeuvre of work. They are noted for their controversial outdoor sculptures and monumental displays of fabrics and plastics.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Santa Giulia Museum Archive

The exhibition “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Water Projects” offer an unprecedented display of 150 studies, drawings, collages, models and photographs by Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s water-related projects, that is those based on rural and urban landscapes characterized by the presence of water in the form of an ocean, a sea, a lake, or a river. The exhibition presents for the first time a full reconstruction of the water-related monumental past or currently ongoing projects from 1968 to 2016, illustrating their different stages of realization, from the first concept sketches, to the drawings, collages and models that follow, all the way to the actual realization of the work documented in the form of photos and videos. The Chronology section of the exhibition offers an introduction to the large-scale environmental works designed and realized since the early ‘60s up to the present day including those which Christo has continued working after Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009. Water first appeared in Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artistic output in “Wrapped Coast”, a project developed in Australia in the late ‘60s and has since then been part of other 6 projects up to today’s “The Floating Piers” project. This exhibition has been conceived as a complement to “The Floating Piers” installation that will be set up and open to viewers on Lake Iseo (18/6-3/7/16), marking Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s return to Italy 40 years. The installation will lead visitors along a three-kilometre route across the Lake’s waters and along its shores. The work will consist of 70.000 square meters of shimmering orange fabric covering a sequence of 16-meter-wide modular floating piers made with 200.000 cubes of high-density polyethylene.

Info: Curator: Germano Celant, Santa Giulia Museum, via Musei 55, Brescia, Duration: 7/4-18/9/16, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-16:00, www.bresciamusei.com