Christo and Jeanne-Claude are a
married couple who create environmental
installation art. Their works include the
wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the
Pont Neuf bridge in Paris, the 24-mile-long
curtain called Running Fence in Marin
and Sonoma counties in California, and most
recently The Gates in New York City's
Central Park.
Although their work is visually impressive
and often controversial, the artists have
repeatedly denied that their projects
contain any deeper meaning than their
immediate aesthetic. The purpose of their
art, they contend, is simply to make the
world a "more beautiful place" or to create
new ways of seeing familiar landscapes. Art
critic David Bourdon has described Christo's
wrappings as a "revelation through
concealment."
At the end of 1970 Christo and Jeanne-Claude
began the preparations for the Valley
Curtain project. A 400-meter long cloth was
stretched across Rifle Gap, a valley in the
Rocky Mountains near Rifle, Colorado. The
project was complicated due to protests by
environmentalists, and with raising the
planned budget of $230,000. The project
required 14,000 m2 of cloth to be hung on
steel cable, fastened with iron bars fixed
in concrete on each slope, and 200 tons of
concrete had to be carried by hand in
buckets up each slope.
The budget increased to $400,000 causing
Christo and Jeanne-Claude additional
problems with the financing. Finally enough
works of art were sold to raise the money
and, on October 10, 1971, the orange-coloured
curtain was ready for hanging, but was torn
to shreds by wind and rock. In August the
second attempt to hang the cloth succeeded,
but only 28 hours later it had to be taken
down because of an approaching storm.
