Sun | May 12, 2024

‘A big grey elephant’ – Paris’ Arc de Triomphe gets wrapped

Published:Saturday | September 18, 2021 | 12:06 AM
Pause
Workers wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument on September 12. The ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’ project by late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be on view from September 8 to October 3. The famed Paris monument has been wrapped in 25,000 square me
AP
Workers wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument on September 12. The ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’ project by late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be on view from September 8 to October 3. The famed Paris monument has been wrapped in 25,000 square metres of fabric in silvery blue, and with 3,000 metres of red rope.
Vladimir Yavachev, a nephew of late artist Christo, who leads the ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’ project, poses near the Arc de Triomphe monument.
AP
Vladimir Yavachev, a nephew of late artist Christo, who leads the ‘L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’ project, poses near the Arc de Triomphe monument.
Workers wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument.
AP
Workers wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument.
Workers put the final touch to wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument, in Paris last Thursday.
AP
Workers put the final touch to wrap the Arc de Triomphe monument, in Paris last Thursday.
People watch workers wrapping the Arc de Triomphe monument.
AP
People watch workers wrapping the Arc de Triomphe monument.
1
2
3
4
5

The city of Paris unveiled a monumental artwork built around an actual monument: the Arc de Triomphe completely wrapped in silver and blue fabric.

The installation by late artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who conceived the project in 1961, opened on Saturday. Visits will take place for almost three weeks. At weekends, the Arc de Triomphe’s traffic-heavy roundabout will be entirely pedestrianised.

Visitors to the famous Napoleonic arch, which dominates the Champs-Elysees Avenue, will not only be able to see the gleaming fabric, but to touch it too – as the artists had intended.

Those climbing the 50 metres (164 feet) to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace.

At a press conference on the project titled ‘Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped’, France’s Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot called it “a formidable gift offered to Parisians, the French and beyond, to all art lovers”.

POSTHUMOUS TESTIMONY

Bachelot added that it was “a posthumous testimony of artistic genius”.

Bulgarian-born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in Paris in 1958 and they later became lovers. The idea for the artwork was born in the early ‘60s, when they lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and Christo in May last year. The monument was to be wrapped last fall, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it.

Christo “wanted to complete this project. He made us promise him that we will do it”, the couple’s nephew, Vladimir Yavachev, told The Associated Press.

The €14 million ($16.4 million) project is being financed through the sale of Christo’s preparatory studies, drawings, scale models, and other pieces of work, Yavachev said.

Passers-by on Thursday looked up in awe. “It makes me think of a big grey elephant placed in Paris on the Champs-Elysee,” said 47-year-old Thomas Thevenoud, who works nearby.

“You really rediscover the beauty of the form,” said 39-year-old Parisian Agnieszka Wojel. “I couldn’t stop taking pictures because it’s extraordinary ... We are very lucky.”

The artists were known for elaborate, temporary creations that involved blanketing familiar public places with fabric, including Berlin’s Reichstag and Paris’ Pont Neuf bridge, and creating giant site-specific installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York City’s Central Park and the 24.5-mile ‘Running Fence’ in California.

Yavachev said he plans to complete another one of their unfinished projects: a 150-metre-tall (492 feet) pyramid-like mastaba in Abu Dhabi.

“We have the blueprints, we just have to do it,” he said.

Associated Press