Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the politics of their art: part 1

Learning of the sudden death of one half of the artist team Christo and Jeanne-Claude this past week I was deeply saddened of course but I also found myself reminiscing, remembering my time in college as an Art History student and my obsession with their art and its sheer ambition. I had always been fascinated with their art. Its process with its lack of egoism or capitalism dumbfounded me at first. But it wasn't until I got to writing my final paper for Senior Seminar that I found how truly remarkable and significant the art of this seminal artist duo really was.

In memory of Jeane-Claude and the 51 years she spent creating temporary works of art hand-in-hand with her husband Christo, I will be posting my final paper in portions. It was all but exactly two years ago that I handed it in. It's the best thing I've ever done (written or not) and probably will ever do. I'm still very proud of it...


Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the Politics of their Art: How they are (shrewdly and discreetly) Socialist, Anti-American and Revolutionary - part 1

Born on the exact same day, June 13, 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon could not have come from two more completely different families. Christo, from a poor industrialist Bulgarian family, lived and studied in Bulgaria until 21 when he left to Czechoslovakia, then Vienna, and finally France, fleeing from the oppression and lack of artistic freedom in Cold War Eastern Europe. Jeanne-Claude, in turn, from a well-heeled French military family, was educated in France and Switzerland. Penniless in Paris, Christo painted portraits for a living while creating his inimitable art objects in his apartment during his free time. Each at opposing sides of French class society, Christo met Jeanne-Claude when he was commissioned to paint her mother’s portrait. Their contradicting class levels and social backgrounds were the main source of problems between Jeanne-Claude’s parents and Christo. These same divergent backgrounds would eventually contribute to their distinctive work dynamic which is essential when considering the implications and execution of their work.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s art is endlessly classifiable and impossible to define. It has been labeled many things including environmental, site-specific, and land art. Christo and Jeanne-Claude (the Christos for short) have been “conceptual, pop, minimalist, well before time, and [have] invented an art form that as yet has neither name nor imitator." Because of the ambition and size of their work, and because their projects have no precedent, they are required to deal with a great deal of legal and bureaucratic maneuverings in order to realize each new and distinct project. The politics and planning, which are planned and executed primarily by Jeanne-Claude, are as much a part of the artwork as the final presentation; their art is as much, if not more, a form of process art than site-specific or environmental. The often lengthy but always strenuous process takes as much dedication and passion as Pollock’s drips, as much premeditated arrangement and deliberation as Arp’s torn paper collages. Financially they spend unforgivably for each work. “Everything we’ve got plus everything we can borrow” Jeanne-Claude has been quoted as saying often. And emphasizing the process, the Christos acknowledge the entire span of time between a project’s initial conception and its final execution as the documented date of a work. The entire process of The Umbrellas (1984-91, California, USA and Ibaraki, Japan), for example, from beginning to end dates 1984-91. The artists are always eager to make a point of the importance of their time spent in between unveilings. When asked recently if the concept was the most difficult part of each project, Jeanne-Claude answered “no, the concept is easy. Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it.” The Christos have enough passion and enthusiasm to follow a project as much as 32 years (Wrapped Trees, 1997-98, Riehen, Switzerland) through to completion.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s art exists in the moment literally and figuratively. Of course we are aware of the fleeting nature of their work. Running Fence (1972-76, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California) is forever suspended in our minds together with whatever was playing on the radio or the fashions at the time. But each project is also very much in, and a part of, the world around it beyond what one sees. The Christos readily use new-age materials for their projects including plastics, nylons, steel cables and poles, as well as new-age production processes, producing their materials employing the newest methods of our industrial and post-industrial society. They are the only artists of note who outsource their production and incorporate world economic globalization into their art. For example “eleven manufacturers in Japan, USA, Germany and Canada prepared the various elements of The Umbrellas: fabric, aluminum super-structures, steel frame bases, anchors, wooden base supports, bags and molded base covers.” And much like a modern corporation they employ thousands of workers for construction and installation. The Umbrellas alone utilized a construction work force of 500 and 1,880 installation workers (not volunteers) all paid standard wages. As landmark Postmodernists their work and their relationship ties the old with the new. The process and method of their work is a melding of “capitalism, democracy, enquiry, experiment, collaboration and co-operation.” Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s marriage and artistic collaboration are a blending of previous artistic traditions with modern capitalism and industrialization. Each puts to use his/her strongest social and/or artistic assets. Christo is producer. Jeanne-Claude is promoter. He is the artist genius to her relentlessly (reciprocally) self-interested manager. Christo is the quintessential enigmatic polymath, a modern example of what has been typified in art history texts since Leonardo. Jeanne-Claude, alternatively, takes the role of up-to-the-minute business organizer and administrator, always attune to the mechanizations of modern corporate society in order to promote and advance their art. She is always attentive of the art market, buying and selling Christo’s early portable works as well as his studies, preparatory drawings, collages, scale models, and original lithographs of their new projects providing capital for their next pending venture.

To be continued. For references, leave me a comment.