Christo & Jeanne-Claude

"The Pont Neuf Wrapped (Project for Pont Neuf – Paris; Quai des Grandes Augustins, Quai du Louvre, Quai de la Megisserie and Quai de Conti)"

The artists Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) worked together for over 50 years. Their enormous and astounding art projects using city and landscape elements made them world-famous. They mastered the whole creative process from idea and documentation to realisation. With their temporary transformations Christo and Jeanne-Claude wanted to redefine objects, buildings and landscapes as art, whilst also expressing a change in the purpose and space for art.

In order to get the permit necessary to carry out their white wrapping of Pont Neuf in Paris, Christo and Jeanne-Claude visited the shops adjacent to either end of the bridge and convinced the shop owners that the project would be beneficial to their businesses. At the same time Christo encouraged the shop owners to write in support of the project to the then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac. When Pont Neuf was finally wrapped in 1985 – after a long period of negotiations and planning (which included a ‘trial wrap’ of another bridge so as to test that it could be done in practice) – they transformed the cityscape abruptly, replacing the historical bridge with a completely alien form. Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artistic work is not primarily conditioned by the desire to create art objects, but is motivated by the need to engage artistically with a place and create a dialogue with its history.

The temporal installations that their works consist of are the result of years of preparations, in which the methodology and the creative process are captured in sketches, photographs and collages that have become artworks in themselves. They all have their own value and document the artistic development of the projects. The work in the auction The Pont Neuf Wrapped (Project for Pont Neuf – Paris) from 1976 is just such an original piece.

The impermanent work was funded entirely by the artists. By wrapping Pont Neuf the tradition of gradual metamorphoses continued through a new sculptural dimension, transforming it into an artwork for fourteen days. Ropes secured the fabric against the metal bridge, retaining its general shape whilst emphasising proportions and details of the Pont Neuf, which for more than 400 years has united the left bank and the right bank through Île de la Cité, the heart of Paris.