With his wife and artistic partner, Jeanne-Claude, the artist Christo has wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin and monuments in Milan — even a coast in Australia. Now, for the first time since her death in 2009, he is returning to their signature style.
On Wednesday, Christo announced that he had received permission from the French government and the country’s Center for National Monuments to wrap the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most famous landmarks in Paris, next year from April 6 through 19.
The project, “L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (Project for Paris, Place de l’Étoile-Charles de Gaulle),” will involve covering the arch with a silvery blue recyclable polypropylene fabric — nearly 270,000 square feet of it — held together with about 23,000 feet of red rope.
It will coincide with an exhibition at the Pompidou Center, planned for March 18 through June 15, that looks back on Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s early years in Paris. Born on the same day in 1935, they met there in 1958, when Christo moved to the city after his studies in Bulgaria. They lived and worked in Paris until 1964, then settled in New York.
The Pompidou exhibition will also include drawings, documentation and more related to another of their famous works, “The Pont-Neuf Wrapped, Project for Paris, 1975-85.”