Famous for the packing of the monuments, the artist Christo, died Sunday, may 31, at the age of 84 years, noted by his staff on his page Facebook. Born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, his death was due to natural causes and occurred at his home in New York, in the United States. It was to be the subject of a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris this spring, the exhibition postponed to 1 July because of the epidemic of Covid-19.

Pack up the Arc de Triomphe

This man of slender figure, with semi-long hair become white, had formed with his wife, Jeanne-Claude one of the couples more media in contemporary art, they have marked their works in situ, requiring years of design and millions of dollars to only last a few days. Inventor of a new kind of art again, "the fabric covering of the space," Christo had wrapped in cloth the Pont Neuf in Paris (1985) and the Reichstag building, Berlin (1995).

" Christo has lived his life to the fullest, not only in imagining the seemingly impossible but in the doing. The work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude has brought together people in shared experiences around the world, and their work lives on in our hearts and our memories, " write of its employees in their message. Born June 13, 1935 in Gabrovo in Bulgaria, Christo had fled in 1956 in a freight train the communist regime and the soviet realism taught at the Beaux-Arts in Sofia.

He had met in 1958 in Paris, his French wife, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, who died in 2009. Christo had elected residence in New York. Naturalized american, the couple had a son. His latest project in preparation, the packaging of the Arc de triomphe de l'etoile in Paris, which was announced as one of the most spectacular events of the start of September, had been postponed for one year due to uncertainties related to the coronavirus. This achievement remains "on track" for the period from September 18 to October 3, 2021, sets out his or her entourage on Facebook.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Christo, @leCMN and the @CentrePompidou have jointly decided to postpone, by one year, "The Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped," initially planned for the fall of 2020. The new dates are: Saturday, September 18 to Sunday, October 3, 2021. #ChristoParis pic.twitter.com/rYXYXK8mrz

— Christo and Jeanne-Claude (@ChristoandJC) April 30, 2020

650 000 square meters of fabric

a Few figures give the extent (or hubris) of his work : of the $ 26 million for planting umbrellas to the giants in California and in Japan, 26 years of age to have the permission to install thousands of cranes in New York city, 650 000 square meters of fabric to surround islands in Florida, 5 million spectators came to see the German Parliament packed... With Jeanne-Claude, it will be rather the artist and the organizer. "This is not the work of Christo, it is the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude," repeated throughout his life, this tiny woman of character to the hair scarlet. To finance itself and maintain its independence, the couple sold the gold price works preparatory (collages, drawings etc).

Their facilities were visible only a few days prior to disassembly. "Nobody can buy these works, nobody can the market, nobody can sell tickets to see... Our work speaks for freedom ", said the artist. Since the death of Jeanne-Claude, Christo has been reported in 2016 with a floating bridge, surrounded by fabric on a lake for Italian, or a mastaba in London (7 506 200 liter cans stacked in the shape of a trapezoid).

22 projects accepted and 37 refusal

" Each work is an expedition ", was this artist who was especially tenacious balked to dwell on the meaning of their production. For the Reichstag, one vote, German mps have even been necessary (292 in favour, 223 against). "There is no message, noted it about the mastaba of Hyde Park. Whether it is critical or positive, any interpretation is legitimate. "

"On 50 years of work, 37 projects were rejected, only 22 have been accepted," it said Christo in 2010, he had never taken the same plane and Jeanne-Claude for fear of having to interrupt the preparation of a work in the event of a crash. Their work was not of any rest : in Colorado, in 1972, they set up a curtain of 120 meters high and 400 meters wide, in the middle of a valley. But the wind the tears. The second attempt will be good. In 1991, an American is being crushed by an umbrella giant and a worker of japanese died during the disassembly of these same umbrellas.

a well publicized Christo has suffered the mocking of critics. In Paris or New York, some have lampooned "this artist needs to hire mountain climbers" (it took 90 to wrap the Reichstag, editor's NOTE). But the public did not hesitate to move in numbers to see their amazing works.

An exhibition at the Centre Pompidou

" Christo was a great artist, capable of giving to our lives a new depth. An Enchanter. It was also a wonderful person combining audacity, determination and a deep humanity, " said the president of the Centre Pompidou Serge Lasvignes. "We had worked passionately with Christo and his people to this project [the exhibition] that he dreamed of as to the preparation of the packaging of the Arc de Triomphe, which was both," said, for his part, the director of the Centre Pompidou, Bernard Blistène.

" May the exhibition that we will open on the 1st of July to pay tribute to this outstanding work, at the crossroads of all disciplines, and if essential to the history of the art of our time ", he added. The exhibition "Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Paris !" will focus on "the parisian period of the torque between 1958 and 1964, the years essential for the evolution of the work of Christo, as well as the history of the project' the Pont-Neuf Wrapped " (The Bridge-a Nine-packaged] ", one of his most famous works.