Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the exhibition at Centre Pompidou, our pictures

With the Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Paris exhibition, Centre Pompidou wants to highlight the work of the 83-year old contemporary artist who died recently and who planned to wrap the Arc de Triomphe, a performance postponed to Fall 2021 because of the coronavirus epidemic. The ehxibition has been postponed for the same reasons and will ultimately take place from July 1 to October 19, 2020.

"It will be an exhibition like a tribute" Centre Pompidou director Serve Lasvignes tells our peers at Reuters. Christo and Jeanne-Claude got famous in the 60’s with their rather crazy installations consisting in wrapping monuments all over the world, the Sydney Wrapped Coast in 1968-69, the Central Park Gates in 2005, The London Mastaba, Hyde Park, London in 2016-2018 and even the Pont-Neuf in Paris in 1985…

This exhibition plans to promote works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude made between 1958 and 1964 just after their meeting. We must say that the 7 years following their meeting will be critical for Christo and Jeanne-Claud. They imagine then many crazy projects such as wrapping Paris Ecole Militaire in 1961, wrapping the statue Louis XIII on the Place des Vosges. They speak about wrapping the Pont Alexandre III in 1972 as well as the Iron Curtain (1962), a Wall made of barrels of oil to criticize the construction of the Berlin Wall… These projects stay on the drawing board, but Christo will manage to wrap the Pont Neuf in 1985.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a store of love and passion for art

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As for the exhibition, it will revolves around two parts: the first one presents about 80 works created between 1958 - when Christo and Jeanne-Claud meet - and 1964 - when the two artists settle in New York. The second part takes us to the heart of the "The Pont Neuf Wrapped Documentation Exhibition" and shows "all the steps of the project leading to the realization of the monumental The Pont-Neuf Wrapped, Paris, 1875-1985 work".

All in all 300 works are said to be presented including "original drawings and collages, a model, photographs, archive documents, studies and engineering elements coming from the project". Besides these unknown studio works such as Cratères, materialistic paintings influenced by Jean Dubuffet, the Surfaces d’Empaquetage, the Wrapped Cans and Bottles as well as an exceptional selection of wrapped objects and the very first Show Cases, Show Windows and Store Fronts, works said to be displayed at Centre Pompidou.

Also note that a movie by the Maysles brithers, "Christo in Parsi" (1990) will be shown and returns on the ten years the couple gave to the "The Pont-Neuf Wrapped" project and is all about this exceptional couple. Let's go, friends, shall we?

Please note that it's been over 4 years since our last visit, so the place and experience may have changed.