With Paris safely back to life following the summer holidays, the city’s art scene is buzzing, from large museums to intimate galleries. One show not to miss that unfortunately many will miss due to travel restrictions is Christo and Jean-Claude Paris! going on at Centre Pompidou until October 19th. A great fan of Christo’s work ever since I walked through his exhibition The Gates in New York’s Central Park in 2005, I had the good fortune to speak with him in an interview last November for this article in Hemispheres. Our meeting in Paris never materialized, unfortunately, as the 85-year-old artist sadly passed away in late May. His and Jean-Claude’s legacy lives on, as you’ll see in these select works from the Pompidou exhibition. To learn more about the life of Christo and Jean-Claude in Paris, here’s an insightful and touching film by the Maysles brothers.
Packing Surface, 1958
Wrapped Oil Barrels, 1959
As you can tell from these works, Christo wrapped various objects with fabric stiffened with lacquer and tied with string, including the Wrapped Toy Horse, 1963.
Package, 1960 
Wrapped Portrait of Jean-Claude 1963
Earning a living as a portrait painter for high society, Christo first met Jean-Claude while painting her mother.
Christo’s best-known work during his Parisian years was his Packages, created between 1958 and 1964. He played with material and color and never disclosed what was inside the packages.
Christo’s “Store Fronts” series in which he covered the inside of recycled display cases and rebuilt storefronts with paper, confirmed his interest in exploring an architectural dimension in his work. This is what led to his urban projects to follow.
In 1975, Christo and Jean-Claude came up with the idea of wrapping the Pont-Neuf bridge with golden sandstone polyamide fabric. Their goal was to create a temporary work in direct contact with reality. They wanted to create interaction among those who walked along the bridge. It wasn’t until 1985 that their dream was realized.
As Christo shared with me during our conversation, Paris was the only city in which he had planned on creating two major installations. His second being the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in a silver-blue fabric, which will now take place in Fall 2021. I have no doubt that Christo and Jean-Claude will be there in spirit.
