Christo und Jeanne-Claude

1935 — 2020 & 1935 — 2009

The American artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude is one of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. They are best known for their fabric coverings of famous buildings and landscapes. Installations with which they attracted an audience of millions and wrote art history. What is fascinating is the often unprecedented size of their art installations and the extensive planning involved - as in the case of "Running Fence", for example. A fence made of fabric panels that meandered through the Californian landscape for almost 40 kilometres. Their last project also attracted international attention: the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris ("L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped"). The two had the idea for this as early as 1962.

Christo had joined the Nouveau Réalisme art movement in the early 1960s. Initially, he wrapped smaller objects such as newspapers, furniture and cars. Together with Jeanne-Claude, he dedicated himself to larger projects. Jeanne-Claude died on 18 November 2009 in New York, where Christo also died on 31 May 2020. Ideas of the artist couple such as "The Mastaba" - a huge sculpture in the desert of Abu Dhabi - are nevertheless to be realised in the future.