www.designboom.com: christo’s dream of wrapping the arc de triomphe is slowly becoming a reality. since yesterday, the parisian capital has been enjoying the mounting of the 25,000 square meters of recyclable polypropylene fabric that will drape from the monument. said to be the greatest work of public art worldwide in 2021, ‘l’arc de triomphe, wrapped’ will be on view for 16 days this autumn, from september 18 until october 3, 2021.
3 comments:
This installation is fascinating to me, upon first reading the title of the piece I imagined a silvery halo, making the arc appear silver and transparent in the night air of Paris, but the description of Christo and Claude’s vision and execution along with the images in the article completely disrupted that image. At first I thought of the arc as under construction as the wrapping made me think of tarps put over historic buildings being renovated and I began to think of tourists who are usually dismayed to find a historical site under renovation might now travel to see the arc wrapped up and invisible, providing an interesting opposite to the regular scope tourism just as has happened during the pandemic. Finally I thought of the wrapping as a funeral shroud as the article mentioned the tomb beneath the arc and wondered if the shroud was for the arc, the soldier or Paris itself as the world has stilled for nearly two years.
The writer of this article made an interesting choice with the details that they decided to highlight. They mentioned multiple times that the artist, Chisto, was funding the entire project with his own money and that no funds were coming from public or private donations. I would need to do more research, but I wonder why that is such a big deal to point out, out of everything. I suppose it is impressive that all of the funding would come from the selling of his art, but I’m not sure that’s the main point that he is going for. I am honestly surprised that the French government is allowing it because they are pretty strict with the use of their historical buildings. I also wonder if this project was turned down in the past and that’s why it took decades to happen or it really just took 60 years for the artists to be ready for it. I have been to the Arc de Triumph and it was lovely, I can’t imagine making a trip all the way to Paris to find it covered. I looked into a few of their other pieces and I don’t particularly understand the message but it id definitely a huge undertaking.
Christo and Jeanne Claude are a fascinating couple of artists. Their various installations over time always seem odd to me upon first glance, and then my mind goes to the scale of the installation and I'm wowed. I saw a few elements from their Surrounded Islands installation in the Perez Art Museum in Miami (not in their originally intended location, but still cool). It definitely was the most crowded exhibit there. It's also impressive that they fully funded it, but it does make sense for the style of art they are working with. If it was publicly funded, local taxpayers might complain, especially since the art is more abstract and does not necessarily appeal to everyone's tastes. But I also think that's what makes public art so important--it forces everyone in the community to see and interact with an artistic work they weren't planning on. Large, obvious installations like these may also prompt us to pay more attention to other artistic elements in our surroundings.
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