This latest exhibition at the Sofia City Art Gallery (SCAG) pays tribute to the unbounded talents of Christo, who left this earthly world just shy of his 85th birthday.
Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of his life,despite thinking, feeling and acting cosmopolitan, and irrespective of his predestined life choices and his civilizational choice, Christo never concealed his Bulgarian origin.His encounter with Jeanne-Claude in Paris in 1958, became a turning point both in his life and in his art. It begot also the happy consonance of their exceptionally harmonious and successful artistic tandem.
Visitors to the exhibition will see five lithographs and photogravures of Christo’s projects. They are part of the SCAG’s collection and were acquired in 2015 when the retrospective exhibition ‘Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Prints and Objects 1963-2014’ was presented for the first time in Bulgaria. Back then, the exhibition was organised with the exclusive supportof the great artist who provided his works free of charge to be displayed in all three halls of the gallery.
Alongside the lithographs and photogravures, visitors to the exhibition will see various texts about Christo’s personality and oeuvre authored by American art critics Michael Kimmelman (the architecture critic of The New York Times) and Jerry Saltz (senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine),as well as by the Russian art critic Anna Tolstova (“Коммерсантъ Weekend”).All three articles were written immediately after Christo’s death. Texts by Bulgarian journalist and writer GeorgiLozanovand by Bulgarian artist Luchezar Boyadjiev will also be on display. Visitors will have the opportunity to see a little-known interview that Christo gave to GeorgiLozanov in his New York atelier. The interview was filmed by Bulgarian theatre and film director StoyanRadev.The video is dubbed in Bulgarian. It has been kindly provided to the Sofia City Art Gallery by Bulgaria ON AIR TV.
A special attraction of the exhibition will be its film programme consisting of 6 films, all in English, about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s best-known projects.