Christo and Jeanne-Claude

by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Taschen (Artist), Christo & Jeanne-Claude (Artist)

The work of the artist couple Christo (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009) resists categorization. It is a hybrid of art, urban planning, architecture, and engineering, but above all an aesthetic uniquely their surreal and ethereal environmental interventions that have graced monuments, public parks, and centers of power alike. This compact book spans the complete career of the couple who were born on the very same day, met in Paris, fell in love, and became a creative team like no other. With rich illustration, it spans Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s earliest projects in the 1950s right through to The Floating Piers, installed at Lake Iseo, Italy, in 2016. The book celebrates all of the couple’s most famous environmental interventions, such as The Gates in New York’s Central Park and the Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin, while also featuring early drawings and family photos unknown to the wider public.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

95 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Teodora Penkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Our projects are not something out of fantasy. Fantasy is what we find in the cinema and the theatre, our imaginative notion of things. But when we feel the real wind, the real sun, the real river, the mountain, the roads - this is reality, and we use it in our work. Our projects carry that reality.”

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude do not work for financial gain or to leave permanent monument to their egos. Just as parents work unselfishly to provide for their children, the artists work to finance their projects. Their expenses and long days of work are repaid only in the joy and beauty they derive from seeing their projects realized.”

“All our projects have a very strong nomadic quality, like the nomadic tribes that build their tents, by using this vulnerable material, there is a greater urgency to be seen-because tomorrow it will be gone... nobody can buy these projects, nobody can own them, nobody can commercialize them, nobody can charge tickets to see them, even ourselves, we do not own there works. Our work is about freedom. Freedom is the enemy of possession, and possession is the equal of performance. This is why the work cannot stay.”

[Jose gonzalezcabrero · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Most art comes in the form of blockbuster exhibitions, which are little better than Disneyland. Our projects are one-in-a-lifetime experiences. They are about freedom. Our bourgeois society has the notion of art as merchandise available only to limited audiences. With our art you do not need tickets to see it. "
"Our projects are not something out of fantasy. Fantasy is what we find in the cinema and the theatre, our imaginative notion of things. But when we feel the real wind, the real sun, the real river, the mountain, the roads - this is reality, and we use it in our work. Our projects carry that reality"

Christo

[Alison Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A stunning Taschen art book. For full review please go to http://thebooksmithblog.wordpress.com

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and picturesque book about the work of these artists who have changed the definition of art with their ambitious and original installations. Loved it.