Christo and Jeanne-Claude – Monumental Art: Documentary which charts the creation of world-renowned artist Christo’s first public work of art in the UK, Mastaba, and looks back on his and his wife Jeanne-Claude’s careers.
In the summer of 2018, on the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park, world-renowned artist Christo created his first public work of art in the UK. Inspired by ancient Mesopotamian tombs, the Mastaba is constructed from 7,506 painted oil barrels and weighs six hundred tonnes. It is the latest work in a career spanning half a century and stretching across the world. His work to date have included surrounding 11 islands off the Florida coast with pink polypropylene and wrapping Berlin’s Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in Paris.
This programme charts the creation of the Mastaba – from the first barrels being put on the water to its final unveiling – and paints a portrait of Christo as he looks back on a life spent making provocative works of art with his wife and partner Jeanne-Claude.
Christo reveals how he funds his projects with a unique business model, and how the long, tortuous and often combative process of gaining permissions and winning people over is part of his artistic
endeavour. He also talks about his escape from the communist east and his early work in 1960s Paris.
A cast of friends, fellow artists, collectors and critics lend their voices to the documentary, including performance artist Marina Abramovic, New Yorker journalist and architectural critic Paul Goldberger, former New York major Michael Bloomberg, writer and art critic Marina Vaizey and architect Sir Norman Foster.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Monumental Art
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and landscape elements wrapped in fabric, including the Wrapped Reichstag, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Running Fence in California, and The Gates in New York City’s Central Park.[1]
Born on the same day in Bulgaria and Morocco, respectively, the pair met and married in Paris in the late 1950s. Originally working under Christo’s name, they later credited their installations to both “Christo and Jeanne-Claude”. Until his own death in 2020, Christo continued to plan and execute projects after Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009.
Their work was typically large, visually impressive, and controversial, often taking years and sometimes decades of careful preparation – including technical solutions, political negotiation, permitting and environmental approval, hearings and public persuasion. The pair refused grants, scholarships, donations or public money, instead financing the work via the sale of their own artwork.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude described the myriad elements that brought the projects to fruition as integral to the artwork itself, and said their projects contained no deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact; their purpose being simply for joy, beauty, and new ways of seeing the familiar.
