{"product_id":"christo-and-jeanneclaude-an-authorized-biography-9780312340940","title":"Christo and Jeanne-Claude: An Authorized Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor their sheer scale and breathtaking audacity  their works have made them among the most celebrated and controversial artists in the world. Valley Curtain stretched 1 250 feet across a valley in Rifle  Colorado; Wrapped Coast covered a mile and a half of Australian coastline with a million square feet of fabric; The Umbrellas deployed 3 100 umbrellas set in Japan and California  each nearly twenty feet tall; Surrounded Islands encircled eleven islands in Biscayne Bay  Florida with six and a half million square feet of bright pink fabric; and Wrapped Reichstag enveloped the entire German parliament in shimmering silver fabric.  For more than forty years  these and many other works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude have reconceived the art of the possible  turned natural and human monuments-streets  bridges  hills  trees  buildings  parks  and islands-into sculptures and paintings  and created dazzling new landscapes and startling new vistas. Often requiring years  even decades  of preparation and planning  these works-not merely feats of aesthetic daring but engineering and organizational marvels-exist for only a few weeks or less. Yet what makes these transient creations linger forever in the mind is their overwhelming and magisterial beauty. They are  in every sense  transformative  and  for the millions who have experienced them in person  unforgettable.  Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been the frequent subjects of films  videos  catalogues  cartoons  monographs  exhibitions  and editorials. Until this biography by Burt Chernow  however  written with the full cooperation of the artists  nothing has connected the intimate details of their lives and the spectacular dimensions of their projects. Christo  the penniless Bulgarian refugee who made his way to Paris during the 1950s  and Jeanne-Claude  the socialite daughter of a prominent French general  seemed an unlikely couple  yet together they forged one of the most enduring partnerships in contemporary art. When they arrived in New York in 1964  Christo was already becoming well known in avant-garde circles for his wrappings of everyday objects; Jeanne-Claude acted as manager  dealer  and accountant. Over time  as Chernow reveals  the fusion of their prodigious gifts-his drawings and her ability to draw things together-produced the works for which today they are known the world over. Chernow recounts their rise from relative obscurity to international renown  revealing both the sources of their art and the heights to which it has quite literally aspired. An epilogue by Wolfgang Volz  a longtime and close collaborator of the artists  as well as their exclusive photographer  provides a fascinating insiders view of what it is like to work  and dream  with them. Christo and Jeanne-Claude is an indelible portrait of the artists and their work  and a moving account of an extraordinary couple.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651588251701,"sku":"ByrdShop_031234094X","price":496.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780312340940.jpg?v=1781836110","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/christo-and-jeanneclaude-an-authorized-biography-9780312340940","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}