The work of art is a scream of freedom
Remembering Christo’s impact on the Indian art world as a tribute to the recently demised art legend
It was back in the 1960s that artists began stepping out of the gallery and on to the public environment, to create public art projects. Famed among the pioneers was Bulgarian artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, (known as Christo to the world) and his slightly lesser-known partner in art and life, Jeanne-Claude. They were a revolutionary ‘art couple’ who changed the art world, internationally with their ‘mammoth alfresco art projects’.
On May 31st 2020, Christo passed away at the ripe age of 84 and as reported, he died of natural causes. Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009, but both artists have left behind a legacy for the artworld, from their Wrapped Coast, (1969), to their Valley Curtain, (1970). While Christo was born in Bulgaria in 1935 Jean-Claude was born in Morocco. The pair met in Paris in 1958 and married in 1959. Notably, Christo, is one of the few male artists of that time who worked openly with his wife Jeanne-Claude and inevitably did not block or underplay the credit coming her way.
They were soon known as the art couple who wrapped up giant buildings, like Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont-Neuf in Paris with reams of cloth, they had people walking across the water with floatable rafts and have created fences and gates across vast landscapes. They brought a new meaning to the idea of land-art and realized projects that most artists would find impossible to create.
As we know many male artists still work with or are ‘inspired’ by the ideas of their partners but hide or downplay their partner’s contribution from the public. Christo on the other hand was a true feminist and openly acknowledge his spouse’s contribution. They employed their artworks as an ‘event’ that “brought people together,” from around the world, to quote from the artist’s statement. Christo and Jean-Claude made their first major outdoor work in 1961, in Germany, by covering oil barrels stacked at the Cologne harbour with material.
“Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible, but realising it,” says a statement on the artist’s official Facebook page. “The couple’s art lives on in our hearts and memories,” says the statement written by their son Cyril Christo, a filmmaker, photographer, writer and animal rights activist.
Artist Vibha Galhotra who was showing her sculptural work as part of the exhibition titled Brave New World, at the JackShainman Gallery, on May, 2019, had the good fortune to meet Christo as he walked in the gallery for the opening. On his inquiry the two were introduced and exchanged notes about Galhotra’s sculpture work titled Grenade (2012). Vibha further adds that he was very “soft spoken and a man of few words”.
“Christo made people walk on water! (The floating piers, Lake Iseo, 2016). I feel fortunate that I got to tell him personally how I was a big fan of the works done by him and Jeanne Claude. In my early days of practice when I was more active in doing land-art, I was very inspired by their works. It was encouraging for any young artist to see other artists actualizing this kind of work and at that scale,” says Galhotra. “What I also found revolutionary about their works was that it was ephemeral, momentary not a ‘collectible’. It brought to the fore that nothing lives forever, and this has really inspired me in my own practice,” says Galhotra.
Bhavna Kakar, the director of Gallery Latitude 28 and editor of Take on Art, has an important observation about Christo’s work and global impact: “White cube spaces have become synonymous to the art practice. However, there are few artists who have preferred to situate themselves and their art in the realm of everyday life and environment,” she observes. “Christo was a giant of the modern art world, whose ephemeral large-scale artworks, made hand-in-hand with his wife Jeanne-Claude, repeatedly grabbed headlines on account of their jaw-dropping scale, and conceptual rigour, considering the preparatory elements to be as much a part of the artwork as the finished spectacle,” she avers.
Kakar notes that despite having roots in conceptual art, Christo and Jeanne-Claude maintained that there was little deeper meaning beyond the immediate visual impact. Their art was for joy, excitement and re-framing the familiar. “Christo always believed in making his works accessible to the larger public. He wanted the common people to have tactile experience with his work. His works were ephemeral and were hardly survived with any physical residues. He wanted his works to be cherished in the memories of millions. Many of his famous ‘wrappings’ appeared for a few days and then went on to live in memory lane,” says Kakar.
Christo changed the way people look at the world’s most famous monuments and the way they engaged with the outdoors. “He would often say, ‘The work of art is a scream of freedom’ which will continue to resonate with me. While they continued to experiment on such a massive scale, they were conscious of the impact their art had on the environment and tried to recycle everything that they used,” she adds.
One observes with Kakar that Christo’s art influenced many artists in India, especially those who wanted to experiment with material. His works have been inspirational to several Indian artists Vivan Sundaram, Shilpa Gupta, Gigi Scaria, Vibha Galhotra, Arun Kumar HG, Satadru Sovan and Ravi Agarwal amongst others.
“For me, Christo has been a great inspiration ever since my college days,” says artist Gigi Scaria. “His acts of intervening landscape and important historical/political buildings and structures have been an act of violation at many levels,” he adds observing, “However, Christo and Jean-Claude always denied their act had any purpose other than pure aesthetic pursuit. Apart from the socio-political underpinnings art also deals with pure purposelessness. It then only demands a procedure to follow with spirited enthusiasm. I felt most of the time Christo proceeded in this direction,” says Scaria, while acknowledging that it was their complex act of working hard to penetrate a bureaucratic system to materialize projects; which in normal cases is humanly impossible.
“I connect few of my outdoor installations which intervene specific sites that have a purpose of adding another meaning to that site at the same time have no trace of meaning, the moment the structure/installation is dismantled,” he says while citing the works Someone left a horse on the shore, Fountain of purification; and Post Land and Settlement.
Text By Georgina Maddox
Wiki Image, Latitude 28, WikiArt, Air air, Steve, Washington, DC, USA, Vibha Galhotra, Gigi Scaria, and Anders Krusberg / Peabody Awards
Find out more about the Artists and Gallery:
https://christojeanneclaude.net/
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/bhavnakakar/?hl=en
https://www.saffronart.com/artists/vivan-sundaram
https://www.saffronart.com/artists/satadru-sovan-banduri
