One year after his death, the last great wish of the Bulgarian artist Christo has been fulfilled. In recent days, thousands have strolled through the French capital with their noses upwards, spectators of the imposing and final “packaging”: that of the Arc de Triomphe, which the artist had already imagined 60 years ago. «In addition to being the end point of an artistic path, it is also its culmination, having always been thought of as the main project of the career. Since 1958, when he moved from Bulgaria to Paris, Christo had been able to observe the Arch every day from the window of his studio, so much so that he became obsessed with packaging ». Elisabetta Lamonaca, who is one of the thousand people from all over the world who decided to come to Paris to take part in the project, tells it. Costing 14 million euros, it was entirely self-financed by the artist’s foundation and coordinated by the grandchildren of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a partner in art and life, who have collected the heavy inheritance. “It is a pity that he could not see it, but he has always said that art is not so much in the final work, as in the whole process, from idea to completion” adds Elisabetta. She and a team of 350 people were involved in cultural mediation, a bridge between the work and the spectators who, every day from the beginning of the works, began to arrive from all over the world. “We can’t quantify in numbers, it’s really difficult. – Elisabetta says – But the flows were really abundant, especially on weekends and in the last days: people didn’t stop despite the rain and the cold, they didn’t care about it ».
The work consists of wrapping the Arc de Triomphe in a large propylene sheet, sprinkled with aluminum powder, which gives it a shiny appearance, and fixed with massive red cords. The final effect depends on the light that strikes the cloth at different times of the day, making the work changeable, like its interpretation. A small group of artistic coordinators, about fifty in all, took care of collecting those of the spectators, conversing with them about the meaning and impression of what they see. Aldo Scarpitta is a Sicilian artist, and in his night shifts, when the range of encounters was more varied – “guys who just came out of the disco, workers who had just finished their shifts, travelers who had traveled kilometers away” – he had the more particular conversations.
Photo by Aldo Scarpitta
«Our role was not only to give general information about the work, but to put the public in a position of openness towards it, to make them fully experience it. The fact that they came to talk to us was also part of the experience. ‘ Although personal, the interpretations were often united by recurring ideas, such as that which sees art as a gift – and therefore recognizes in the work a posthumous gift from Christo to the city – or that which recognizes an imaginative power in concealing and then revealing a known monument of the city, to allow then to perceive it with different eyes; up to the conception of the taking of the Arc de Triomphe as a political act.
The task of the mediators and their coordinators began after the first week of September, just before packaging, to inform the very few who still did not know the project in Paris. The actual work on the monument, however, began in July, when the employees of the technical team began to assemble the steel structures that served to protect all the elements of the arch, from the statues, to the upper vault, to the frames.
“The Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Paris, 1961-2021”
A work of #ChristoandJeanneClaude to discover from September 18 to October 3, 2021! #ChristoParis @ChristoandJC @leCMN @Paris pic.twitter.com/IQhDxdVKmN– Arc de triomphe (@ArcDeTriomphe) September 17, 2021
Of the thousand participants in the project, many were Italians: «Among the mediators alone there were about eighty, wherever you moved you could find an Italian. And this also gives an idea of what the situation in Italy is, because many like me have come here to experience and see if there can be more afterwards, in a reality like that of Paris which is artistically much more alive than ours. “.
The works that in his 60-year career had made Christo known all over the world have now gathered hordes of enthusiasts who, after following him on his itinerant artistic journey, wanted to witness the immense and posthumous celebratory project: “It was nice to meet people who she knew more than you because she was passionate about the artist, – says Elisabetta – who came with a life path that had already been traced because Christo’s works had left their mark. There were people who, after seeing “The Gates” in New York, the Biscayne Islands in Miami, the Reichstag in Berlin, the Pont Neuf in Paris and “The Floating Piers” on Lake Iseo, came here to bear witness. of previous experiences. Then, as it was the last wrapping, everything took on greater importance, because it was a bit like putting a period at the end of the sentence ».
“The Floating Piers” al Lago d’Iseo
Christo with “La Mastaba” in London
Bundled Reichstag building
The project is, in fact, temporary and, after a week in which the work has been offered to the public, work on the “unpacking” of the monument will begin today, carried out by “Les Charpentiers de Paris”. All the material used will be entirely recycled. The canvas, but also the ropes and the steel structure, will be reused in an industrial context in the country.
The beauty of the work seemed to leave almost no room for skepticism: «I got to speak to a lady who told me ‘I didn’t even want to come, then a friend who was passing through Paris convinced me’. In the end it was the third time she came back because she was delighted ».
Those who contest it, on the other hand, often cite the excessive cost of the same – due to the erroneous and widespread belief that it is financed with public money – or the fact that the Arch is a symbol of the homeland and, as such, untouchable. But for this very reason, probably, the project assumes an even more important role: “One thing that pleased me – says Aldo – is that this work took place now, after the pandemic and after, for our safety, we have suffered a limitation of the use of public space and we have reduced ourselves to the private one. It is, therefore, an enormous reconquest: for the first time in history – it had only happened with the Tour de France – the square was made pedestrian for the entire weekend, made available to people who were able to meet at the open and do the same thing together. In addition, it was an artist, a man of the people, who regained the public space, who demonstrated that, with due care, with everyone’s space, we can do whatever we want ».