"Surrounded Islands" (1980-83)

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were two artists of the public and monumental, remembered for their environmental art installations. The most characteristic of this duo was the use of fabrics to wrap gigantic buildings or cover extensive natural areas. They were pioneers of Land Art; an artistic current arising from conceptual and minimalist art whose purpose is to create art in nature, using its materials and location in natural environments. Therefore, documentation is the only thing that remains of these works.

From their works, a hybrid between sculpture and architecture, the artists created an ecological conscience that disapproves of the irresponsibility and excesses of capitalism. Thus, hosting this exhibition at Proa Foundation is logical. The building's transparent façade allows communicating experiences from the inside to the outside, building a direct dialogue with the emblematic Riachuelo River, which is one of Argentina's most serious environmental problems.

 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Credits: Proa Foundation

"Little Bay" (1969)

View from Proa Foundation

The exhibition "Christo and Jeanne-Claude" shows the process of their creation through the drawings, technical complexity, models, gigantic photographs of their work, and photos of the monumental projects that amazed the crowds. Entering the first room, we find the works of the mid 50's when Christo arrived in Paris: magazines wrapped in transparent vinyl, the showcases of some stores, and various objects before the works in the public space.

The tour continues with the monumental simultaneous projects during the 70s and 80s, a very fruitful artistic period. Among them are "Surrounded Islands", eleven islands with pink propylene fabric that could be seen from different places; "Valley Curtain" in Colorado, a sort of curtain between two orange mountains; or the disturbing "Wrapped Reichstag" in Berlin, a work that alludes to freedom since in the 50s Christo had escaped from communist Bulgaria.

 

"Valley Curtain" (1972)

"Wrapped Reichstag" (1995)

Another of the wonders on display is the famous floating dock of yellow fabric whose color changed according to the time of day on Lake Iseo in Sulza, Italy, where more than 10,000 people "walked on the water", an unforgettable physical experience. The sketches give an approximate idea of the scale on which they worked, the meters of canvas used, and the technical difficulties they faced, as in the case of "The Gates" in New York's Central Park, a 37-kilometer stretch of the park with orange canvases, a project that took 26 years to complete and was seen by around 4 million people during the 16 days the installation lasted in 2005.

The retrospective exhibition closes with a project that could not be carried out due to the artist's death, but will probably be inaugurated in the future. The project consists of installing "mastabas" in different parts of the world, monumental sculptures made of oil barrels. There are also "The Umbrellas", blue umbrellas for Japan, and yellow umbrellas for California among others that arouse astonishment.

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