The Arc de Triomphe has seen parades, protests and tourists galore, but never before has the Paris War Monument been wrapped in silver and blue recyclable polypropylene fabric. The next will happen in a posthumous art installation designed by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. «Christo has enveloped museums, parliaments like in Germany, but a monument like this? Not really. This is the first time. This is the first monument of this importance and scale that he has built, ”Vladimir Yavachev, the nephew of the couple who ultimately collaborated, told The Associated Press. Preparations for the Napoleonic arch have already begun and the workers are covering the statues to protect them from the canvas with which it will be wrapped.
The 1961 project
The idea for ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’ was born in 1961, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009 and despite Christo’s death in May 2020, the project went on. “He wanted to complete this project. He made us promise we will, ”Yavachev told The Associated Press. It was supposed to be built last fall, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the installation. The € 14 million ($ 16.4 million) project is self-financed through the sale of Christo’s preparatory studies, drawings, scale models and other works, Yavachev said. Those who visit the Arc de Triomphe during the installation, scheduled for September 18 to October 3, will be able to touch the fabric, and those who climb to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace, as planned by the artists.
The artist’s biography
Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, born in Morocco on the same day, in Paris in 1958. The artists were known for elaborate temporary creations that involved lining familiar public places with fabrics, such as the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris, and the creation of gigantic ‘site-specific’ installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York’s Central Park. and the 24.5-mile ‘Running Fence’ in California. Yavachev plans to complete another of his uncle and aunt’s unfinished projects, including a 150-meter-high pyramidal mastaba in Abu Dhabi. “We have the plans, we just have to do it,” he said