Culture
In a Final Work, Christo and Jeanne-Claude Aim for Eternity
The artists redefined the idea of the temporary urban spectacle. Their last design would be a monumental departure, funded with a novel technology.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude with a model of The Mastaba in 2007.
Photographer: Eric Estrade/AFP/Getty Images
Before the artist known as Christo died in 2020, he asked his nephew to promise that he would finish the two last pieces designed by the artist and his wife, Jeanne-Claude.
One of those remaining works — Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped — was executed in September 2021. Christo’s crew draped more than 270,000 square feet of shimmering silver-blue fabric over the monument in Paris, an enormously controversial project that required 1,600 workers, tangled traffic for weeks, and drew 6 million visitors.