Esquire — June 2018 77Previous page: Wolfgang Volz © 2018 Christo | Gety | Wolfgang Volz/Laif/Camera Press
Sofia. She was born Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon — on the same day,
in the same year — in Casablanca, Morocco, ater her mother, who would
later become the first female officer to enter liberated Paris in August
1944, was briefly married to a French general. Christo and Jeanne-Claude
met in 1958, became lovers in, as will become apparent, a somewhat scan-
dalous fashion, and began working together in 1961. Over the course of
their collaboration, they have been responsible for some of the most ambi-
tious, awe-inspiring and divisive art works ever made.
In 1972, they hung an orange curtain measuring 18,600sq m between
two mountains in Colorado. In 1976, they ran a 40km fence of white
nylon across the dusy fields of Northern California. In 1983, they sur-
rounded 11 islands in Biscayne Bay, Miami, with skirts of hot-pink poly-
propylene fabric, so that they looked like Technicolor fried egs. In 1995,
they wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in a 100,000sq m silvery shroud.
In 2005, they placed 7,503 safron fabric banners hanging from five-me-
tre poles throughout Central Park in New York, creating golden path-
ways through the bare trees. All of these projects drew crowds in their
thousands, sometimes millions. None of them existed for longer than
16 days.
Over 48 years, Christo and Jeanne-Claude realised 23 projects. hey
failed to get permission for 47. heir work has taken them into the very
heart of power in many nations, with projects standing or falling at the
whim of a president or a prime minister, a mayor or a sheikh. he cost of
making the works has been immense, and entirely self-funded; the value
of them incalculable.
In 2009, Jeanne-Claude died, aged 74, from complications relating to
a brain aneurysm. Since her death, Christo has continued to work on pro-
jects that they conceived together. One of them, “The Floating Piers”,
a network of bright yellow walkways allowing people to walk on water,
they had proposed in 1970 for the Río de la Plata between Argentina and
Uruguay. In 2016, Christo realised it on Lake Iseo in Lombardy, Italy, hisfirst major project since Jeanne-Claude’s death. It was deemed a triumph
— Forbes magazine called it “divine” — and 1.2m people came to see it:
twice the number anticipated.
The London Mastaba is also based on an idea that he and Jeanne-
Claude had had together: in 1968, they proposed a floating mastaba on
Lake Michigan but were not granted permission. Its appearance in the
British capital, however, is something of a surprise — the contract with
Royal Parks was signed of only five days before construction commenced
— though it will undoubtedly become one of the most talked about cul-
tural events in Britain this year.
“Christo is an imaginative visionary who conceives big ideas and
brings them to life with relentless determination,” said Michael
R Bloomberg, chairman of the Serpentine Galleries, at the announcement
of the London Mastaba; Bloomberg was also the mayor of New York who
championed “he Gates” project in Central Park. “In New York, we’ve seen
how his projects can benefit cities culturally and economically, and we’re
excited that the Serpentine will be the site of his next work.”
Given that Hyde Park expects over 7m visitors in a normal summer,
seven-figure audiences are all but guaranteed; and at 20m tall, with no
trees to obscure it, it will be hard to miss. But who would want to?While construction of the London Mastaba begins across the
Atlantic, Christo has remained at his studio in SoHo, Manhatan, making
preparatory sketches for the project, because, as he says, “I need to work to
pay the bills!” His studio occupies the top space of a five-floor reddish-brown
building built in the 1860s, which has a rust-coloured fire escape zig-
zaging down the front. Christo and Jeanne-Claude moved here in 1964,
illegally at first — living in commercial lots was not permited in New York
until 1971 — and eventually bought it from their landlord in 1973. Now it sits
next to a branch of Agnès B and faces a fancy trainer shop. It belongs to an
era of the ciy that is fading, though not gone.The couple’s ‘Surrounded Islands’ installation
in Biscayne Bay, Florida, 1983