The artist known as Christo, who made his name transforming landmarks, such as Germany’s Reichstag, by covering them with reams of cloth, died on Sunday, aged 84, his official Facebook page announced.
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff died of natural causes at his home in New York City, it said.
The Bulgarian-born artist worked in collaboration with his wife of 51 years, Jeanne-Claude, until her death in 2009.
Photo: AFP
Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect; but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.
“Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible, but realizing it,” a statement from his office said.
“Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork brought people together in shared experiences across the globe, and their work lives on in our hearts and memories,” it said.
In accordance with Christo’s wishes, a work in progress — l’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped — would be completed, it added.
The event is now scheduled to be shown from Sept. 18 next year, having been postponed from this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Born on June 13, 1935, in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, Christo left his home country in 1957, living briefly in several countries before arriving in Paris, where he met his future wife, a fellow artist.
However, in their subsequent collaborations, he was credited more as the artist and Jeanne-Claude as the organizer.
“This is not the work of Christo; it’s the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude,” she would say.
To finance their massive, ambitious projects and thus maintain their artistic freedom, the couple would sell their preparatory work, including collages and drawings, at exorbitant prices.
Next year’s work in Paris is to be accompanied by an exhibition at the city’s Centre Pompidou about their time in the city. That show is due to start next month and run until the end of October.
A statement sent to Agence France-Presse by the Centre Pompidou on Sunday paid tribute to the artist as an “enchanter” who was “essential to the history of art of our time.”
“Christo was a great artist, capable of giving new depth to our everyday,” Centre Pompidou president Serge Lasvignes said.
The center had worked “passionately” with Christo’s team to put the exhibition together in parallel with the Arc de Triomphe project, center director Bernard Blistene said.
“Let the exhibition that we will be opening on July 1 pay tribute to this exceptional body of work, bestriding all disciplines and so essential to the history of art of our time,” he added.
The exhibition is to focus on the time Christo and his wife spent in Paris — 1958 to 1964 — during which they developed their signature style.
As well as the German Reichstag, another of their major projects was wrapping the Pont Neuf, Paris’ oldest bridge, in 1985.
Sunday’s statement from Christo’s office concluded: “In a 1958 letter Christo wrote: ‘Beauty, science and art will always triumph.’ We hold those words closely today.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS