Matthias Koddenberg – författare

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are renowned above all for their ephemeral yet monumental interventions in landscapes and cities. Fabric is a defining feature of their projects; they use it to wrap, conceal and otherwise manipulate our visual perception of the world. They have created numerous oil barrel sculptures and installations since the beginning of their careers, though these are less well known. This book is dedicated to these barrel creations, a niche portion of two great artists' ouevre.In the late 1950s, Christo started to wrap used oil drums which he had found on scrapyards or bought cheaply at recycling sites. Later, he began piling the untreated oil drums to form ever larger structures. The largest project of this kind to date is a giant sculpture made up of 410,000 oil barrels in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. The project has been developing since 1977; ever since the death of Jeanne-Claude in 2009, Christo has continued it on his own.This book, published to accompany a large exhibition at Fondation Maeght in the south of France, shows many photos as well as images of drawings and collages, some of which have never been published before. They offer a comprehensive insight into Christo and Jeanne-Claude's oil barrel projects. Significantly, it contains a detailed documentation of a sculpture specially created by Christo for the famous Giacometti courtyard at Fondation Maeght. Exhibition: 4 June - 27 November 2016, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.

In the autumn of 2020, Christo will wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in silvery fabric for 16 days, returning to his signature style - after realising The Floating Piers in Italy, the London Mastaba,and a quarter of a century after he and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag building in Berlin. As a prelude, a major exhibition at PalaisPopulaire in the German capital will celebrate this 25-year anniversary in the spring of 2020. At the same time, the Pompidou Centerwill pay tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude by staging The Pont Neuf Wrapped Documentary exhibition as well as a comprehensive show highlighting their early years in Paris.Toaccompany these events, Matthias Koddenberg, art historian and long-time friend of both Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, who was theother half of the artistic duo until her death in 2009, has edited an elaborate collection of interviews. The book is composed of many conversations held between Koddenberg and Christo in the artist's New York studio over the last few years.With rare frankness, Christo describes how he fled from Bulgaria and made his way into the Western world. He talks about his time in Vienna and Geneva, his vibrant life inParis that was full of hardship, and the fateful moment when he met Jeanne-Claude.This publication provides an exceptional inside view, uniting texts and numerous archival images and photographs, many of which have never been published before, or depict early works by Christo that have only recently been rediscovered.

Christo (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009) created some of the most breathtaking artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. Their projects radically questioned traditional conceptions of painting, sculpture, and architecture.This lavish photo book is the first comprehensive publication on the artists’ oeuvre to be released after Christo’s death in May 2020. It also serves as a curtain-raiser for Christo und Jeanne-Claude’s last major project – the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which will be carried out posthumously in the fall of 2021.Presenting a wealth of photographs and studio snapshots from 1949 to 2020, some of which are private, this book allows an intimate peek behind the scenes of Christo und Jeanne-Claude’s monumental installations which fascinated the public for decades. In addition to pictures capturing the artists at work, it includes photos documenting all of their major projects.Matthias Koddenberg (b.1984), art historian and close friend of the artists, spent many years compiling the more than 300 images featured in this volume. Among them are pictures taken by companions and friends and hitherto unpublished photographs from the artists’ estate. Together they tell the extraordinary story not only of the couple’s artistic collaboration, but also of their five-decade-long partnership.