BIOGRAPHY
Christo - Artistic
partnership. Christo [Christo Javacheff] (b Gabrovo, Bulgaria, 13 June
1935), an American artist of Bulgarian birth, studied at the Fine Arts Academy
in Sofia (1953–6), after which he spent six months in Prague. There he
encountered Russian Constructivism, which impressed him with its concern for
monumental visionary structures. He escaped first to Vienna, studying briefly in
1957 at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, and in 1958 to Paris. Like his
contemporaries, Christo rebelled against abstraction, seeing it as too
theoretical and proposing in its place a manifestly physical art composed of
real things. Christo began by wrapping everyday objects, including tin cans and
bottles, stacks of magazines, furniture (e.g. Wrapped Chair, 1961; New
York, Jeanne-Claude Christo priv. col., see 1990–91 exh. cat., p. 54),
automobiles, or various objects such as Wrapped Luggage Rack (1962; New
York, Jeanne-Claude Christo priv. col., see 1990–91 exh. cat., p. 56). From
1961 he collaborated with his wife, Jeanne-Claude [née de Guillebon] (b
Casablanca, 13 June 1935). Industrial materials, usually polypropylene sheeting
or canvas tarpaulins held in place with irregularly tied ropes, were used for
the wrappings. The use of fabric sometimes involved wrapping an object,
sometimes a bundle; these coverings partly obscured the object’s contours and
hampered its function, thus transforming it into an aesthetic presence. In 1964,
just after moving to New York, this repertory of forms was augmented by a series
of life-sized store fronts, for example Store Front (1964; New York,
Jeanne-Claude Christo priv. col., see 1990–91 exh. cat., p. 67), the view
through their plate-glass windows blocked by hanging fabrics or by sheets of
paper stretched across their fronts, again rendering their function uncertain.
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