Fabric monuments In the summer of 1995, the Reichstag building in Berlin was transformed into an immense sculptural experience by Christo and Jeanne-Claude along with a team of hundreds of workers.
Using fabric materials has become a famous tradition for Christo and landscape projects in the USA, Japan, and Australia and urban projects such as the Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris have established them as the most extraordinary artist couple of the age.
This in-depth survey of their unusual work is illustrated with absorbing photographs by Wolfgang Volz. About the Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series
“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.”
"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"
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.