Involved Artists:
Christo and Jeanne Claude (BG/MA)
The Project
This exhibition presents one integral aspect of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oeuvre, the print, photographs and object editions. Extremely varied in both content and technique, it evinces all of the approaches and procedures used in their large projects: wrapping surrounding – a silent obscuring of elements in the environment that temporarily deprives them of utility.
The objects and prints are enormously diverse, as are the techniques and media employed. Yet rather than reflecting a concern for graphic innovation, this diversity arises directly from the process of planning, developing, and realizing the projects. The activity of drawing and collage is a preparatory one with Christo. The design he makes at this phase anticipate realization, representing imaginative projections of something that must first come to being. Yet they are not merely beautiful visions. On closer examination, we notice that these drawings, like architectural renderings or engineering sketches, contain much information about technical details. This sets them apart from utopian designs. In preparing a project Christo makes sketches and pastes in the actual materials Christo and Jeanne-Claude plan to employ. Christo makes frequent use of topographic photographs, adding elements of drawing and collage, using the photograph as a background for his draftsmanship.
p. Werner Spies, art historian and former director of Centre George Pompidou, Paris
Extracted from the catalogue raisonné Christo and Jean Claud. Prints and Objects
“The unquestionable importance of this exhibition relies not only on the excellent retrospective selection of (Christo’s) body of works. In this show we can appreciate his refined preparatory drawings and other singular pieces from 1960 to 2000, alongside with the photographic testimony of his most infamous instalations. There’s a precious material for knowing the work of Christo and Jeanne Claude in this exhibition but, above all, it shows the essentials to dive into the poetical meaning which gives form to their never simple artistic work”
Francisco Calvo Serraller, art historian and former director of Museo del Prado, Madrid
El País, April 24th 2006
History:
- translation not available – Madrid
Fundación Canal
April 06, 2006 to July 09, 2006
Mateo Inurria, 2
28036 Madrid -Spain
