 Jean Claude is primarily known as Jeanne-Claude Christo
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Ad Code: 2
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from Auction House Records.
Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin)
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Following is The New York Times obituary of the artist, by William Grimes, November 19, 2009:
"Jeanne-Claude, Christo’s Collaborator on Environmental Canvas, Is Dead at 74"
Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental art projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park, died Wednesday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 74.
A statement on the couple’s Web site, christojeanneclaude.net, said the cause was complications of a brain aneurysm.
Jeanne-Claude met her husband, Christo Javacheff, in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo, a Bulgarian refugee, was already making art of wrapped packages, furniture and oil drums. Three years later, they made their first work together, a temporary installation on the docks in Cologne, Germany, that consisted of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpaulin.
To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Other works were credited to Christo alone.
Their collaborative approach, as described on their Web site, remained constant throughout the years. After he and his wife conceived an idea for a project, Christo made drawings, scale models and other preparatory works that were sold to finance the final project. With the help of paid assistants, they then did the on-site work: wrapping buildings, trees, walls or bridges; erecting umbrellas (“The Umbrellas,” 1991); spreading pink fabric around 11 islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami (“Surrounded Islands,” 1983).
“We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,” Jeanne-Claude said in a 2002 interview. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.”
Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon was born on June 13, 1935, in Casablanca, where her father, a French army officer, was stationed. After attending schools in France and Switzerland, she earned a baccalaureate in Latin and philosophy in 1952 from the University of Tunis.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Cyril Christo of Santa Fe, N.M.
In 1962, Christo and Jeanne-Claude caused a sensation when, in response to the building of the Berlin Wall, they blocked the tiny Rue Visconti in Paris with a barricade of oil drums. Jeanne-Claude managed to stall the police as they closed in, arguing that the work, “Wall of Oil Barrels, Iron Curtain,” should stay in place a few hours more.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo moved to New York in 1964 and embarked on grander, more theatrical projects. Nothing, it seemed, was too large to be shrouded in fabric. In the late 1960s, they wrapped the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland, just one of many buildings, walls and statues to come. In 1969 they wrapped a million square feet of coastline near Sydney, Australia.
Although wrapping remained the couple’s signature, they staged other environmental projects and public displays. At the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1968, they erected, with the assistance of two giant cranes, an inflated cylindrical fabric “package,” in appearance a bit like a stretched-out Michelin Man, that stood nearly 280 feet tall.
The projects became communal events, during construction and after. Millions of viewers were attracted to “The Umbrellas,” installed simultaneously in 1991 in Ibaraki, Japan, and at the Tejon Ranch in Southern California. “The Gates,” a series of flapping bannerlike panels installed in Central Park in 2005, also attracted more than five million viewers during the two weeks that the work lasted.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a statement released Thursday, praised “The Gates” as “one of the most exciting public art projects ever put on anywhere in the world — and it would never have happened without Jeanne-Claude.”
The couple often had to overcome stiff resistance to their projects from municipal officials and citizens worried at the possible environmental impact of their work. Some critics dismissed their work as a repetitive series of stunts devoid of intellectual content. More often than not, however, the projects, once in place, turned out to be enormously popular.
Before Jeanne-Claude’s death, she and Christo were at work on two longstanding projects: “Over the River,” a series of fabric panels to be suspended over the Arkansas River in Colorado, and “The Mastaba,” a stack of 410,000 oil barrels configured as a mastaba, or truncated rectangular pyramid, envisioned for the United Arab Emirates.
Like all of their projects, these were intended to be temporary. Whether executed in oil drum or brightly colored fabric, the art of her and her husband, Jeanne-Claude said, expressed “ the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/arts/design/20jeanne-claude.html
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  An environmental installation artist and painter of architectural
landscape drawings, Jean-Claude Christo, known as Jean-Claude, has
become known for her collaborations with her husband, Javacheff
Christo, in "wrapping" famous buildings and geographical landmarks with
plastic and woven-fabric sheets. Their joint projects include
wrappings of the "Berne Kunsthalle" in 1968, a coastline area in
Australia; the Reichstag, in Berlin; and the Pont Neuf in Paris.
In California, they oversaw the building of a running fence 18 feet
high and 24.5 miles long and in Japan and California, designed a
running series of 3,100 umbrellas.
In February 2005, the Christos oversaw the installation of one of their most attention-getting endeavors, The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005.
Opening February 11 and lasting sixteen days, it was the biggest art
project in the history of New York City. Seventy-five hundred
frames, sixteen feet high, were placed at intervals along 23 miles of
footpaths in the park. Suspended from the frames were orange
tinted fabric banners, intended to convey a "splash of sunrise" and
what Javacheff Christo described as "a visual golden river". But
declining to say much about the project, the artist said: "This project
is not involving talk. It's a real, physical space. It's not necessary
to talk. You spend time, you experience the project". (Tribune)
Jeanne-Claude
was born in Casablanca, Morocco on June 13, 1935, the same day as her
husband. The couple have lived primarily in New York City, although
they travel frequently.
They do not use their last name,
Javacheff, but their son Cyril took the last name of Christo.
According to Bedford McIntosh, "In the past few years they have come to
refer to themselves as the 'artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude,'
recognizing her critical role in the projects. The titles on their more
recent projects reflect this."
Funding for the site-specific works come from the sale of preparatory drawings, documents, and sculptures.
Sources:
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art
Bedford McIntosh
Scottsdale Tribune, February 13, 2005, A17
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