Cristo Vladimiroff Javaneff, commonly referred to as Christo was born in Bulgaria in 1935. Following his studies at the Beaux Arts of Sofia he left for Vienna after disagreeing with the political régime before eventually moving to Paris in 1958. Interested in found materials and consumerism, he frequented the New Realism group. Following his marriage with Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, the couple moved to New York in 1964 with ideas for projects that involved the wrapping of monuments, parks and places – all as ephemeral installations. To Christo, « the urgence to be seen is all the greater that tomorrow everything will have disappeared…No one can buy these works, no one can own them, no one can commercialize them, no one can sell tickets to see them…Our work speaks of liberty. »
Each work could therefore take years of preparation. The verbal interaction with the public was part of this process and Christo was talented at communication and promotion. As Marina Vaizey explained « his method is inseparable from his art. » The surroundings of the Biscayne islands in Miami with pink polypropylene in 1983, the wrapping of the Pont-Neuf in Paris with yellow polyester in 1985, the silver fabric around the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995, and the installations of floating platforms linking the islands of the Iseo lake in 2016 are all notable works done by the couple. In 1962 a proposal to wrap the Arc de Triomphe was first rejected but in April 2019 the city of Paris announced that the project had been accepted. It was pushed back due to covid restrictions, finally taking place in September 2021 as a posthumous work as Christo had passed away on 31 May 2020.