National Gallery presents Christo and Jeanne-Claude with "Wrapped Reichstag"

The National Gallery Square 500 opens for the first time on November 4 at 6:00 p.m. an exhibition of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the birth of the creative tandem. The first acquisition of Christo's landmark work for the museum collection - "The Wrapped Reichstag" (Project for Berlin, 1971–1995) from 1986 and other original collages, will be officially shown to the public.

The implementation of this project took 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized 8 other projects included in the exhibition. The archival video materials, photos and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag are a kind of historical narrative of this project.

Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon were born on the same date – June 13, 1935, in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, and Casablanca, Morocco, respectively. During the communist regime, Christo studied at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia from 1952 to 1956, but decided to leave Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna to Geneva. In 1958, he moved to Paris, where he met Jean-Claude. She became his wife and partner in the creation of monumental spatial installations. Jean-Claude died on November 18, 2009, and Christo – on May 31, 2020, in his home in New York.