Christo

Christo, known all over the world as the artist who wraps things up, studied painting, sculpture and stage art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia between 1952 and 1956. After one semester at the Vienna Art Academy in 1958 he moved to Paris where he made his first wrapped and tied-up works. In 1961within the context of his first one-man exhibition Christo realised his first large-scale project: oil drums covered with tarpaulins and strapped together with ropes in the harbour area in Cologne ('Stacked Oil Drums'). Then followed the 'Rideau de fer', an 'iron curtain' made of empty oil drums blocking a road. 'Showcases' was made in 1963, vitrines which one cannot look into because the inside of the glass is covered with a foil. Christo developped these "Showcases" further in 1964 in New York, his new residence, where, together with his wife Jeanne-Claude, he made the 'Shop Fronts' which cannot be entered. Environments followed, such as the one in 1968 on the documenta 4, where Christo installed a 5600 cubic metre parcel. After his 'Wrapped Air' and the 'Wrapped Tree' in 1966 he continued in 1968/69 with wrapping public buildings such as the Kunsthalle Bern or the Museum of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, in the latter he also wrapped the stairway and the hall in the interior. His wrapped projects include monuments, pavements and even wrapped coastal stretches and entire islands. In 1994 the German Bundestag approved of Christo´s project of wrapping the Reichstag which was finally done between 23 July - 8 June 1995.