Christo and Jeanne-Claude(Bulgarian/French 1935 - )PACKAGE ON A HUNTsigned in pencil in the marginoffset lithograph printed in colourssheet size: 100 by 69cm, unframedThe art duo of Christo and Jeanne-Claude have created some of the most ambitious and innovative outdoor sculptures and installations in art history. In April 2004 Christo and Jeanne-Claude received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Sculpture from the International Sculpture Center. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, but Christo continued his work until his passing, early in 2020 at the age of 84. Christo was in the midst of planning to cover the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but the project was postponed to 2021 due to the Corona pandemic. The artists are known for a number of public art installations, including the wrapping of the Reichstag in 1995, where the German parliament was wrapped in 100 000 square meters of silver-propylene fabric and tied with 15km of rope. This project cost $15 million and ultimately took twenty years to be realized due to bureaucratic issues, but the couple persisted. The artists funded all of the projects themselves, at times selling preparatory drawings and Christo’s art produced in the 1950’s and 1960’s to help pay for each project. In October 2019 Stephan Welz & Co offered the poster for The Gates (Project for Central Park, New York City) (lot 245). Other notable projects that the artists executed included Wrapped Coast (Australia, 1969); Valley Curtain (Rifle, Colorado, 1970 – 1972); Surrounded Curtains (Greater Miami, 1980 – 1983); The Umbrellas(Japan – USA, 1984 – 1991). The artworks took years, sometimes decades to realize, and were then only exhibited/activated for a few weeks or months before being deconstructed, and their materials recycled. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were artistic collaborators, but they only announced Jeanne-Claude’s artistic involvement in 1994, believing that her role as a co-creator would have prevented them from getting permits to create some of their artworks. Jeanne-Claude has mentioned this reasoning herself but has not elaborated on it. Since 1994, Jeanne-Claude has been retroactively credited as Christo’s collaborator in all of their large-scale artworks. While many of the artworks can be defined as public installations or land art, they are also temporary, and therefore ephemeral, unusual at a time when Western dogma still perpetuates the essential eternity of art, particularly that produced by male artists. Some of the larger projects involved hundreds of people. Generally, Christo would produce the first drawings and Jeanne-Claude would begin the process of organisation required, including authorization to the space, editors, photographers, press releases and any other bureaucracy required in the initial planning process. Christo has attested that the artworks were living objects, with the wind activating the fabric they used, giving it a dynamic quality. Included on offer (lot 338) is a poster signed by Christo and details preliminary plans and sketches of their installation Package on a Hunt. Unlike their other installation works, the original Package on a Hunt, is currently in the permanent collection of the Goslar Mönchehaus Museum, displayed in their sculpture garden. In 1987 Christo received the Goslar Kaiserring for modern art. In 1988 he and Jeanne-Claude created Package on a Hunt, the artwork consists of the last lore loaded with ore (which is referred to as ‘hunt’ by those involved with mining). The work left Rammelsberg ore mine on June 30, 1988 as part of mining procedure. Oddly, the work continued to travel, being moved from the Monchehous Museum in 2000 to the Rammelsberg for space reasons in 2016 and was also included on the Treasure Harz exhibition at the castle museum on Castle Square in Braunschweig. For this reason, this work can be thought to refer to the concept of the émigré that was transposed onto Christo often, whose family fled Bulgaria. Even though the artist denied this concept often. The mystery of a wrapped article and the concealment of an object usually available to the public draws attention to the fact that we weren’t paying attention to the details of the object at all, and only realised once it had been concealed, that we couldn’t recall it in detail. Christo and Jeanne-Claude stated many times that there was no underlying meaning in their work other than transience, that they made the work simply because they were compelled to. The artwork occurs during the planning phase. In Christo’s words, “Many of our projects have the same urban planning dimensions as those of the construction of a highway or a bridge. In both cases, the procedures of authorization are similar; we face the same problems as those who build a highway, a skyscraper, or a bridge.” The artists have stated before that the planning phase, and the bureaucracy required in order to install their public installations, are as much a part of the artwork as the final wrapped object, available for public intervention. It is with this understanding that the artwork occurs during the process and that the completed work is evidence of that process. The completed wrapped object, or the signed poster, complete with plans, aerial maps and drawings of the work, are not the equivalent to preliminary sketches, practiced for a painting, but the complete artwork in itself. This poster is a complete work, and a record of the process. For those collectors who appreciate the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the prints of their posters, such as the one we have on offer, are most likely their only opportunity to purchase the work for their collection. Source: Wallector Sculpture – Online A publication of the International Sculpture Center A Matter of Passion: A Conversation with Christo and Jeanne-Claude by Jan Garden Castro
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