Hexton Gallery has announced the opening of “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Ephemeral Nature,” a curated exhibition that showcases never-seen-before works from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's private collection. The exhibition will feature an extensive selection of original drawings, collages, and wrapped objects from the couple's private collection, many of which have never been shown to the public until now. The gallery, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation have also launched a year-long program focused on the artists’ pioneering impact on environmental art, celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1972 Valley Curtain project in Rifle, Colorado.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Ephemeral Nature is the first major U.S. gallery exhibition in collaboration with the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation since Christo’s passing in May 2020, as well as one of the largest gallery exhibitions in America during the past 10 years. Two major projects were conceived in Colorado, the Valley Curtain and Over The River, which is why the gallery wanted to celebrate their legacy and their value to the region.
Many of the selected works held significant personal value for the couple. Since some of these works have never been exposed to the public before, visitors will have a unique opportunity to experience the pieces in even more vivid color, as several of them have been exposed to little or no sunlight.
In addition to the “Wrapped Objects”, which includes a wrapped flower bouquet that Christo once gifted Jeanne-Claude and kept in their private home until his death, the works on display will also be representative of “The Umbrellas: Project for USA and Japan”, “Over the River”, “The Gates Project”, “Floating Piers”, “Running Fence”, and “Valley Curtain”.
In June, the Gagosian Gallery Paris announced an exhibition dedicated to Christo, presented in collaboration with the artist’s estate. Featuring sculptures made in Paris between 1958 and 1963, the exhibition features the earliest examples of Christo’s wrapped objects and barrel structures, many of which are exhibited for the first time, along with key works from his rarely shown Surfaces d’Empaquetage and Cratères series. The exhibition opened to the public on June 10, displayed across two floors of Gagosian’s rue de Ponthieu gallery, near Christo’s first Paris studio.
The late artistic duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude were renowned for interventions in public spaces, some involving architectural landmarks, including Pont Neuf or the Reichstag in Berlin. Following the passing away of Christo in 2020, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped was carried out by his team, according to the artist’s wishes. The intervention was first designed in 1962, and in 2017 Christo returned to the idea when the Centre Pompidou proposed a retrospective of the Parisian period of his artistic career. The temporary installation featured twenty-five thousand square meters of recyclable silvery-blue fabric held together by 3,000 meters of red rope that covered the Parisian landmark.
