Burt Chernow taught at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and created the Housatonic Museum of Art in Connecticut. Wolfgang Volz has collaborated with Christo and Jeanne-Claude and extensively photographed their projects.
"Christo and Jeanne-Claude are as much adventurers and gamblers as
artists. They love the action. There is something of the
mischievous child in them, devising then accepting their own
near-impossible dares. They are guerrillas dedicated to subversion,
their schemes greeted with disbelief. Perhaps they find perverse
delight in watching jaws drop as people hear of their plans to
build a fabric-covered processional through their hometown park,
surround islands with flaming pink fabric, construct a gargantum
structure in the desert, or wrap a bridge, monument, or government
building. Taking on greater odds, their ideas appear simultaneously
familiar and wildly alien, evident yet enormously complicated,
obvious but rich in ironic subtexts."--Burt Chernow
"What induces an artist to undertake such complicated, dangerous,
and ephemeral projects as covering a rocky Australian coastline in
synthetic fabric, hanging a colossal curtain across a Colorado
valley, or wrapping the Reichstag? Christo, the Bulgarian-born
mastermind behind numerous unprecedented, large-scale, politically
volatile, and, after the dust settles, sublime and unforgettable
creations, has courageously challenged assumptions about art for
more than four decades. A man of phenomenal energy, vision, and
passion, he's remained an enigma in spite of his renown, as has his
collaborator and wife, Jeanne-Claude. This unusual couple, who
share the same 1935 birthday and who fell in love under scandalous
circumstances in 1959, didn't declare their 'artistic
interdependence' until 1994. Chernow, who knew the resilient and
intense pair well, recounts their dramatic life stories and
chronicles the arduous technical, financial, legal, and public
relations efforts involved in their monumental projects,
establishing beyond doubt the true symbiotic nature of their
partnership. Sadly, Chernow died before completing this captivating
work, but it will stand as the keystone biography of a truly
revolutionary artist and
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