PARIS (AP) – The city of Paris presents a monumental work of art built around a real monument: the Arc de Triomphe completely wrapped in silver and blue cloth.
The installation by the late couple of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who conceived the project in 1961, will open on Thursday. The visits will take place over almost three weeks. On weekends, the roundabout with heavy traffic at the Arc de Triomphe will be completely pedestrianized.
Visitors to the famous Napoleonic arch, which dominates the Avenue des Champs Elysées, will not only be able to see the bright fabric, but also touch it, as the artists had wanted.
Those who climb 50 meters (164 feet) to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace.
At a press conference celebrating the project entitled “Arc de Triomphe, wrapped”, the French Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, described it as “a formidable gift offered to Parisians, French and other countries, in all art lovers “.
Noting the artists’ death with sadness, Bachelot added that he was “a posthumous witness to artistic genius.”
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, of Bulgarian descent, met Jeanne-Claude Denat of Guillebon in Paris in 1958 and later became lovers. The idea for the play was born in the early 1960s, when they lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009 and Christo in May last year. The monument was supposed to be wrapped up last fall, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it.
Christo “wanted to complete this project. He made us promise to do it, “the couple’s nephew, Vladimir Yavachev, told The Associated Press.
The 14 million-euro ($ 16.4 million) project is funded through the sale of preparatory studies, drawings, mock-ups and other work by Christo, Yavachev said.
The artists were known for elaborate temporary elaborations that consisted of covering familiar public fabrics with cloth, including the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, and the creation of site-specific giant installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York Central Park and the 24.5-mile “Running Fence” in California.
Yavachev said he plans to complete another of his unfinished projects: a 150-foot-tall (492-foot) pyramidal mastaba in Abu Dhabi.
“We have the plans, we just have to do it,” he said.