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Speaker 1: We gave you a chance to water the plants. We

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Speaker 1: didn't mean that way, and I zip up your pants.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that vocal exercise. Hey everybody, Hey, hey, hey,

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Speaker 1: so good to have you back on the show. I'll

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Speaker 1: appreciate y'all listening to us when there are one Trilli

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Speaker 1: another podcast you could be tuning into at this time.

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Speaker 1: I also hope that if you haven't yet, you got

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Speaker 1: a chance to listen to us over on Ridiculous History. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: talking about the history Valentine's Day. Super fun. Yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: super weird stuff. All are awesome. I was laughing because

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine posted that she preferred lupercalia yea

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Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, and I was like, you know, I should

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Speaker 1: have mentioned that. Of course, as the only female present

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Speaker 1: for our episode of Ridiculous History, I had said, no

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Speaker 1: luper callia for me, But there are some ladies out

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Speaker 1: there who like that. If you want to get whipped

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Speaker 1: with a bloody goat, hide happened. My only ethical concern

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Speaker 1: is for the goats. I would I would encourage you

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Speaker 1: to get whipped with maybe a wet towel or or

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Speaker 1: you know, a piece of foe leather soaked in corn syrup,

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Speaker 1: you know, to the goats blood. That's an official tip,

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Speaker 1: by the way, from your friendly neighborhood stage hands. We

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Speaker 1: have made many, many, many buckets of fake blood out

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Speaker 1: of red food coloring and corn syrup and a little water.

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Speaker 1: Here's the real secret, and I learned this in the movies.

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Speaker 1: To get fake blood stains out of your skin, use

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Speaker 1: shaving cream. Get yourself a little cannon barber salts scored

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Speaker 1: in your hands, rub it around. Boom, fake blood. It's gone.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise that will stay in your hands for days. That's

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Speaker 1: so weird. Why what is it about shaving cream? Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a chemist, I'm a proxyis. I didn't have

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Speaker 1: to look it up. It works. It looks great. If

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Speaker 1: you find yourself covered in fake blood, cover yourself in

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Speaker 1: shaving cream. Just trade it out. Great, you'll look great,

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Speaker 1: no matter someone dripping with corn syrup with a big

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Speaker 1: shaving cream beard on their face like an insane Eli

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Speaker 1: told me to do it. Did you know that back

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Speaker 1: in the day with Black and White, they used chocolate syrup. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I was in a short film where Michael Palma covered

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Speaker 1: me in chocolate syrup after a simulated car crash. Yeah. Well, anyway,

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Speaker 1: if you didn't know, now you know. Now you know

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Speaker 1: that's why you came here. And speaking of tricks of

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Speaker 1: the trade in the art world, we're going to get

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Speaker 1: into a little bit of the art world today, aren't we. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'm excited about this one. Yeah. This is a cool

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Speaker 1: story about a world that I was not too familiar

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Speaker 1: with beforehand. I mean, I've heard of these guys, but

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Speaker 1: I didn't really know much about their work besides looking

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Speaker 1: at it and going Okay, I'm sure that's for someone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I didn't know anything about them until like

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Speaker 1: last year. And then I looked and I was like,

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Speaker 1: what is the point of this? Like I was really

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Speaker 1: a hater? And then I looked him up. I was like, actually,

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Speaker 1: I really like this Now. It really gave me a

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Speaker 1: huge appreciation and they have such an interesting story that

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Speaker 1: they really worth doing. Yeah, And we really we wavered

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Speaker 1: a little on whether not to do this episode because

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Speaker 1: we weren't sure if these two were a ridiculous romance

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Speaker 1: or just kind of and historical romance. But if you

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Speaker 1: have seen their art, you know that's kind of ridiculous enough.

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Speaker 1: I think they've set up these bizarre structures across the world.

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Speaker 1: They wrapped monuments and even whole islands in brightly colored fabrics,

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Speaker 1: and their abstract environmental art brings out admirers and critics alike.

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Speaker 1: But where the art comes from and like what it's

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Speaker 1: really all about kind of helped us understand and appreciate

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Speaker 1: it way better. So I say, let's take a look

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Speaker 1: at where Christo and Jean Claude came from, and then

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Speaker 1: the tangled web that led to them being together romantically,

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Speaker 1: and what about their lives makes their ridiculous art projects

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Speaker 1: so dang interesting. I cannot wait to cover this one.

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Speaker 1: Every Let's go, Hey their French, come listen. Well, Eli

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Speaker 1: and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making,

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Speaker 1: no romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a lover.

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Speaker 1: It might be any type of person at all, and

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Speaker 1: abstract cons at a concrete wall. But if there's a story,

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Speaker 1: were the second glance Ridiculous Romance, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Christo vladimirv Yama Chef was born on June

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. He was a middle child,

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Speaker 1: with two brothers on either side and His father was

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Speaker 1: a scientist who also ran a small textiles factory, and

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Speaker 1: from an early age, Christo was super into art. He

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Speaker 1: really spoke. In fact, it said that he didn't even

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Speaker 1: really start speaking at all until he was six years old.

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Speaker 1: Before that, his older brother and now he would communicate

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Speaker 1: for him. Their family wasn't super wealthy, but his parents

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Speaker 1: got him private tutors and encouraged his natural talents. So

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Speaker 1: young Christo just had like bright shiny stars in his

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Speaker 1: eyes and he picked up a paint brush and he's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the next great thing. And then World

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Speaker 1: War two happened. Oh man, damper on so many things

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Speaker 1: and everything. Really that damn world War two? And ding dang,

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Speaker 1: do you making trouble again? Somebody want to put a stop?

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Speaker 1: That is World War two. So Bulgaria in World War

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Speaker 1: two was in a rough spot. They started out totally neutral,

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Speaker 1: then the Nazis got him and they were aligned with

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Speaker 1: the Axis Powers for a few years before Russia came

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Speaker 1: in kicked out the Nazis and added Bulgaria to the Allies.

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Speaker 1: No more Nazis. Everything's good, right. I think they woke

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Speaker 1: up every day like which slide of the war, right, Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: I want to wear the right out there. Well, if

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Speaker 1: only the war was over, no more Nazis. All was

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Speaker 1: looking good. But after the war in six I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you know that Eastern Europe had some troubles

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Speaker 1: and the Soviets marched back into Bulgaria, abolished their monarchy

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Speaker 1: and installed a communist regime in its place as the

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Speaker 1: People's Republic of Bulgaria. So yeah, there's just a lot

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Speaker 1: of back and forth politics, like one person tossing out

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Speaker 1: one oppressive regime for another. Like you said, whose side

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Speaker 1: are we on today? I don't know what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Just a lot of bombing and badness and not a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun. Yeah, upheaval. You can't really make a

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Speaker 1: stable life for yourself. Sounds awful, right, Honestly, feel terrible

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Speaker 1: for like all of those countries because you'd be like, oh, sweet,

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Speaker 1: World War two, it's finally over. Fantastic, Everything's going to

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Speaker 1: be fine now, right, Actually it sucks for another like

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Speaker 1: eighty years. So once Bulgaria became a Soviet satellite, Christo's

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Speaker 1: father's property and factory were both nationalized, and that hit

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Speaker 1: the family with kind of a downgrading in their class,

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Speaker 1: and in when Christo was just thirteen years old, a

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Speaker 1: drunken factory worker over bleached a hundred thousand meters of fabric,

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Speaker 1: which ruined it um. But it was his father who

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Speaker 1: was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for quote intentional destruction of

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Speaker 1: Soviet production. That doesn't seem very fair. And you know,

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Speaker 1: some students teased him, you know, they were like, ha,

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Speaker 1: your that is a capitalist. He's an enemy to the people.

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Speaker 1: You're stuck and so does he, you know. Anyway, so

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Speaker 1: he's dealing with a lot of ribbing, you know, in

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Speaker 1: school for that stuff. But his friends saw him as

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Speaker 1: this shy, imaginative kid. He invented creative games for them

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Speaker 1: to play well into their teenage years. And in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three he was admitted to the Academy of Fine

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Speaker 1: Arts in Sofia and thought cool, all right, at least

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Speaker 1: I can make some cool art now. But the Communist

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Speaker 1: government wanted to suppress all types of Western arts, so

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Speaker 1: he was pretty much stuck with realism. There is no interpretation,

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Speaker 1: no meaning, no voice, just portraits, landscapes, very straightforward stuff.

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Speaker 1: But Crystal was clever and he would throw nuance into

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Speaker 1: his paintings of peasants, like, rather than showing field workers

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Speaker 1: dutifully and triumphantly harvesting, he showed them peacefully, relaxing and

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Speaker 1: in conversation, just like chilling out in the fields. And

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Speaker 1: his portrait of a nearly naked old peasant showed a

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Speaker 1: man with calloused hands and feet, but he gave him

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Speaker 1: the traditional features and postures of an aristocrat, suggesting that

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Speaker 1: there's maybe no human difference between these two people. You know,

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Speaker 1: no why and time and again these were rejected by

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Speaker 1: academy professors. Right. They took one look and they were like,

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Speaker 1: why you paint them like layabouts is sitting in the

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Speaker 1: field and dunking to each other, Like you you make

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Speaker 1: beautiful painting of strong about people working nineteen days for

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Speaker 1: stale bread. Yes, that's what I want to see. I

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Speaker 1: also love that little acts of sabotage and artwork, Um

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Speaker 1: like you see that with Angelo and stuff too, and

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Speaker 1: Da Vinci, where they're just like, I'm just gonna carefully

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Speaker 1: put a little quiet rebellion in the hope my patrons

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Speaker 1: are too dumb to notice, and they usually are. But

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Speaker 1: Communist Bulgaria didn't just want their paintings to look like landscapes.

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Speaker 1: They wanted their landscapes to look like paintings. So Christo

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Speaker 1: and other students were also assigned to a youth brigade

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Speaker 1: as quote unquote volunteers. Yeah, you can guess how voluntary

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Speaker 1: that was, right. They were like, no, you must do it,

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Speaker 1: but we won't pay you, so your volunte Thank you

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Speaker 1: for volunteering. They went out along the route of the

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Speaker 1: Orient Express, which was the only railway connecting Western Europe

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Speaker 1: to the East, and they just cleaned and worked those

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Speaker 1: fields until they looked absolutely gorgeous. And this was mainly because,

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Speaker 1: of course, this was sort of the only view of

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Speaker 1: communist Russia that a lot of Westerners would get out

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Speaker 1: the windows of the Orient Express. So they were trying

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Speaker 1: to make it look like everything was going great, very prosperous,

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Speaker 1: you know, so that they could spread the great message

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Speaker 1: of communism far and wide right. These little Potempkin villages

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Speaker 1: like just a facade set up to make it look pretty,

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Speaker 1: when in fact it was not so good. Behind the facade,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of poverty. Christo said, quote. Bales

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Speaker 1: of hay and equipment were displayed on each side of

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Speaker 1: the railroad tracks. Sometimes the items were wrapped in tarpaulin

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Speaker 1: and tied up for protection. Christo and the other art

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Speaker 1: students were also sent to paint Soviet propaganda on the weekends,

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Speaker 1: so everything was just so rigid and controlled. Didn't have

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Speaker 1: any sort of freedom and what he was going to

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Speaker 1: paint or how he was going to make his art.

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Speaker 1: So he just got over it, and in ninety six

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Speaker 1: he used a connection at the academy to get permission

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Speaker 1: from the government to go study in Prague, which was

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Speaker 1: in the more progressively communist Czechoslovakia, before he ended up

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Speaker 1: bribing his way onto a rail car to sneak out

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Speaker 1: to Vienna. He wrote back to his brother and nanny

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Speaker 1: saying quote, I could not bear anymore to be crushed

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Speaker 1: and told what art is when those are lowly lies,

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Speaker 1: absolute nonsense, cynicism. I embrace you warmly, forgive me. I

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Speaker 1: wish you success in faith and art. He worked commissions

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Speaker 1: in Vienna to survive study there as much as he could,

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Speaker 1: and eventually made his way to the city. He always

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Speaker 1: dreamed of seeing Paris, France. Man a dream of seeing Paris, France.

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Speaker 1: Every night. We've seen it, so the dreams are very realistic.

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Speaker 1: So that's when he got into the Nouveau realist movement.

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Speaker 1: So Nouveau Realism was this art movement that started in

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Speaker 1: France in the late fifties. Basically, these artists said that

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Speaker 1: their medium was reality. They said art doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: elevate or idealize any subject. It doesn't have to have

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Speaker 1: any scholarly meaning behind it. They didn't need to create

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Speaker 1: a sculpted face in marble or paint a subject into existence.

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Speaker 1: They could actually use real things and make art out

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Speaker 1: of those. Or, as put by the art story dot

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Speaker 1: org quote, they took the ready made object to become

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Speaker 1: an active participant in the work of art. In its simple,

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Speaker 1: unadorned form. An accumulation of trash became a picture. A

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Speaker 1: crushed car informed a sculpture. A block of color could

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Speaker 1: dwell on a wall unapologetically itself. I'm not going to say,

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Speaker 1: as someone who has long struggled with more modernist kind

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Speaker 1: of art, uh this. I found this description really interesting,

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Speaker 1: especially that last bit, a block of color could dwell

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Speaker 1: on the wall unapologetically itself. And I really like that

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Speaker 1: because you know, I was definitely one of the first

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Speaker 1: to be out there, not one of the first, but

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Speaker 1: I was definitely before I even heard it anywhere else.

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Speaker 1: Definitely looked at some of these paintings and was like

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Speaker 1: I could do that when I was five years old,

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Speaker 1: you know. And that's sort of the common criticism of

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Speaker 1: such minimalist simple ship like that. But this idea of

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Speaker 1: like it's just unapologetically itself. It's just it's just what

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Speaker 1: do you want me to do with it? It's just

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Speaker 1: a square of color. If there it is, look at it,

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Speaker 1: move on. You know. It's not to mean anything. I

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Speaker 1: feel you I had always had, especially you know, when

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Speaker 1: I first started getting interested in art in any way,

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Speaker 1: I was like, this is not impressive, Like what what is?

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Speaker 1: Why did you have to go to school to do this?

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Speaker 1: You know what I mean? But I think you're right.

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Speaker 1: That's what's so fascinating about art appreciation is just like

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Speaker 1: this story, Once you kind of find out the thought

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Speaker 1: process behind something, it makes it a lot more interesting

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Speaker 1: to look at. Art is not just about the finished product.

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Speaker 1: I growing up, We've talked about this, you and I

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but I growing up was like so

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Speaker 1: rolled my eyes so hard at Jackson Pollock that I

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Speaker 1: would I would strain my eyeball muscles, like so ridiculous.

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Speaker 1: Uh so just like, yeah, I've done that by accident,

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Speaker 1: you know. And then on my on My Study Abroad,

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Speaker 1: which are grown in UM. On My Study Abroad, the

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Speaker 1: podcast I was in UM I think it was in

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Speaker 1: Venice at the Guggenheim, and they had all this Jackson

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Speaker 1: Pollock work up and I walked in and I walked

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Speaker 1: right up close to one of his paintings, and just

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Speaker 1: immediately I could hear the switch in my brain click,

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Speaker 1: and I was just like, holy shit, I get it.

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Speaker 1: Like it was so frustrated and messy, and and I

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Speaker 1: think someone there explained it as like Jackson Pollock is

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Speaker 1: looking at the state of the world and all the

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Speaker 1: art that's coming before him, and he's like, what what

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Speaker 1: else can I do? But just just gonna throw paint

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Speaker 1: at the canvas. I'm just throwing it, Like what else

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Speaker 1: am I supposed to do? How else am I gonna?

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Speaker 1: Nobody has changed the world yet it's still a crazy place.

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Speaker 1: So here just take it. And I thought that was

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Speaker 1: so fascinating and Okay, yeah, it's more than just splatters

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Speaker 1: and squiggles. It's uh, it's an act, you know, with

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Speaker 1: with meaning behind it and this is the result of

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Speaker 1: that act. But I kind of definitely had a more,

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Speaker 1: a much wider appreciation after that. Yeah, I had this

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Speaker 1: similar in theater because of data, similar time period even

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Speaker 1: and reaction to the war, and France was data theater

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Speaker 1: which was completely just gibberish, like they didn't have storylines,

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Speaker 1: they didn't have often didn't use real words. They were

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Speaker 1: just kind of totally jabber and make up nonsense, noise

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Speaker 1: and whatever. And I was always like, again, it looks

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Speaker 1: like a bunch of kids running around like banging on pots,

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Speaker 1: Like I don't understand why this is important to know,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it a teacher who was explaining, like, well,

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Speaker 1: this is really coming out of reaction of a crazy

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Speaker 1: world war that we can't even comprehend because it was

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Speaker 1: fought literally in their in their town. We don't have

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Speaker 1: that experience in America, so we don't. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: you've got to really put yourself there. They sat through

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Speaker 1: that whole war and tore up towns and just everything

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Speaker 1: all the fallout of war, and then and then it's

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Speaker 1: just like okay, now it's over, so business as usual.

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Speaker 1: What's like the world, what like everything about the world

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Speaker 1: is weird to me now, it just feels off and

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Speaker 1: wrong and what does any of this mean? Why are

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Speaker 1: we here? What is the point of anything? So yeah,

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Speaker 1: their reaction was just like, there are no words. I'm

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Speaker 1: just going to stand here and scream that's my real

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Speaker 1: feeling now And honestly I get it after pandemic, right

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Speaker 1: return to data is u are we just like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: here's my new TikTok. It's just me going blah blah,

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Speaker 1: and people like this is deep, brilliant, fascinating, the most

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Speaker 1: the most introspective art of the century. There are people

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Speaker 1: who put events up now on Facebook, like just go

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Speaker 1: out of five pm and scream that is data. That

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Speaker 1: is data right there. So the founder of New Realism,

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Speaker 1: Pierre restanieled it quote a poetic recycling of urban, industrial

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Speaker 1: and advertising reality. And it wasn't any type of criticism

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Speaker 1: on that reality necessarily. It was actually, in fact trying

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Speaker 1: to take apart this idea that artists are these lonely,

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Speaker 1: scholarly people painting densely metaphorical subjects in their studio, right.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to get rid of that image. If anything,

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Speaker 1: the criticism of New realism was against the art world itself.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of these artists would get together and collaborate,

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Speaker 1: and they even held live public art making sessions where

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Speaker 1: audiences would get invited to come in and participate. So

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Speaker 1: it made me think, like, if you're walking around on

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Speaker 1: the street, you know, sometimes they'll have these like community

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Speaker 1: murals or something where you walk up and and add

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Speaker 1: your little painting to the wall, something like that. If

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Speaker 1: you if you stumble across one of those, here's what

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Speaker 1: you do. You lean back, you put your hand on

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Speaker 1: your chin, and you go mm hmmm, how Nuvo released?

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Speaker 1: That guy? Know what he's talking about? Or if you

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Speaker 1: see like a bunch of kids like making a sidewalk

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Speaker 1: chalk drawing together, you can be like, I love the

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Speaker 1: New vau Realism, brilliant. Your depiction of a flowers so

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Speaker 1: absurd that it brings more meaning to flowers by saying nothing,

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Speaker 1: you say so much, so much, Or like if they're

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Speaker 1: passing around an office birthday card, you know you could

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Speaker 1: be like, well, I've always appreciated the new of a

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Speaker 1: realist movement. Wow, I didn't know Sharon was so interested

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Speaker 1: in New vau Realism. I guess I'll sign her card.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, just just a way for you to sound

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Speaker 1: smart out there in the world. You know, go wild.

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Speaker 1: We're here for you, you know what I mean. So

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Speaker 1: Crystal gets involved in new vo realism. He's looking around

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Speaker 1: mid century Europe and he's fascinated with packaging. He's like,

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Speaker 1: everything is put into a box, and then another box,

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Speaker 1: and then it's wrapped, and then putting a bag, and

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Speaker 1: then you take it home and you have to take

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Speaker 1: it out of all that stuff. That is so true.

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Speaker 1: I have been so frustrated by packaging and sometimes I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying why is this? And this also, and he

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Speaker 1: said that traditional sculpture wasn't available to him. He could

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Speaker 1: not afford materials like steel, wood or clay, so instead

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Speaker 1: he took household items like a paint can for example.

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Speaker 1: He would wrap them in canvas, tie it with string,

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Speaker 1: and soak them in a lacquer and sand mixture which

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Speaker 1: made them stiff and structured and put all together. The

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Speaker 1: collection was called inventory, he said, quote. It comes from

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Speaker 1: when you move to a new house and place things

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Speaker 1: in the corner or on shelves. It probably has to

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Speaker 1: do with escaping, carrying things bundles or going home, which

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Speaker 1: you can see. Oh yeah, definitely. His past coming to

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Speaker 1: play in that. Yeah, I mean he left with nothing,

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Speaker 1: so and you know, I imagine at most he had

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Speaker 1: like a little a little wrapped up piece of cloth

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Speaker 1: with some food in it or something. Ye out of Bulgaria.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's so cool to kind of look

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Speaker 1: at where this seemingly meaningless art is coming from, like

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Speaker 1: kind of look at his transition from wrapping haystacks for

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Speaker 1: the Soviets to wrapping paint cans for nobody. Right, but

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Speaker 1: before he started wrapping things way bigger than paint cans,

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Speaker 1: he was going to meet the love of his life,

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Speaker 1: Jean Claude de Guyabon, and we will get to know

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Speaker 1: her right after this. Welcome back to the show, everyone,

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Speaker 1: very nice, show a little more culture. So. Jean Claude

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Speaker 1: de Guabon was born in Casablanca, where her French military

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Speaker 1: father was stationed, on June nineteen thirty five, the exact

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Speaker 1: same day that Christo was born in Bulgaria. She would

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Speaker 1: later say, quote both of us at the same hour,

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Speaker 1: but thank God to different mothers. That would be quite

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Speaker 1: something for a mom to give birth in both France

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Speaker 1: and Bulgaria at the exact same time. Now there's far

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Speaker 1: less information about her early life out there, but their

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Speaker 1: family moved around quite a bit. Being military, she had

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Speaker 1: a bit more privileged than Christo ever had. She got

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Speaker 1: most of her early schooling in France and Switzerland, and

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Speaker 1: from a young age she was bright and outgoing and

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Speaker 1: a very highly social person. She was also extremely organized.

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Speaker 1: After she received her degree in Latin and philosophy in Tunisia,

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Speaker 1: she returned to Paris to live near her mother, and

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Speaker 1: it was there in Paris that she'd go on to

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Speaker 1: meet and marry a man named Philippe plan Sean. Who

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Speaker 1: the f is Philippe plan Sean? Wait a second, well,

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Speaker 1: that actually brings us to this episode side piece, Your

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Speaker 1: place or mine? There's not really any information about Philippe

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Speaker 1: plan Chant, but he was Jean Claude's older boyfriend in Paris.

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Speaker 1: Her family thought he was the perfect match for her,

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Speaker 1: but Jean Claude's mother was commissioning a portrait of herself,

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Speaker 1: so she needed a great painter in Paris. In is

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Speaker 1: not a tough time to find a great paint He

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Speaker 1: kind of stumbled over him. Every time you went outside,

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Speaker 1: Throw a rock in a Paris street and you're gonna

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Speaker 1: land in a on somebody's easel, right, and they're gonna

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Speaker 1: be like, how nuvo really? Yes, she is brilliant people.

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Speaker 1: So one day she's at her hairdressers she saw a

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Speaker 1: work by the artist she wanted to paint her and

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Speaker 1: it was signed yav A Chef. Christo was broke as

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Speaker 1: a joke in Paris. He was still developing his reputation

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Speaker 1: with the new Realists, so to pay his bills, he

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Speaker 1: was using his classical training and talent to paint portraits

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Speaker 1: and his new realist works. He signed Christo and his

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Speaker 1: traditional works were signed yava Chev his last name right right,

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Speaker 1: And I'll say, if you can look up some of

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Speaker 1: his like early portraits and sketches and paintings, and the

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00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,959
Speaker 1: guy was very good, yeah, I mean beautiful portraits. So

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Speaker 1: Jean Claude's mother tracked down Christo, this guy yav a Chef,

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Speaker 1: and brought him back to her home to paint her portrait.

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Speaker 1: And so he would come by every few days to

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Speaker 1: work on this portrait, and eventually he started dating her

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Speaker 1: daughter Joyce. Who the f is Joyce? Oh, apparently Joyce

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Speaker 1: was Jean Claude's half sister. Jean Claude herself took one

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Speaker 1: look at Christo when he was there painting her mother,

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Speaker 1: and she said, quote, oh, mother's brought home another stray.

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Speaker 1: She actually thought that Christo was gay, and she said, quote, well,

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Speaker 1: he's so skinny. He's got long, thin hands, and he

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Speaker 1: paints classic long thin hands. Come on, fellas, it's a

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Speaker 1: gate have long thin hand. But no. Christo and Joyce

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Speaker 1: got together just as Jean Claude and Philippe were planning

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Speaker 1: their wedding. But then Jean Claude and Christos had to

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00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 1: get to know each other, and they were kind of

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Speaker 1: getting along. He invited her up to his tiny little

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Speaker 1: attic studio to see his sculptural work, the wrapped items

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Speaker 1: that he was way more proud of than his portraits.

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Speaker 1: So he opened the door and allowed her a very

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Speaker 1: brief glimpse before he threw the light switch and everything

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Speaker 1: went pitch black. She said, quote, in that second, what

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00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: I had seen was packages from Florida ceiling, all piled

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Speaker 1: on top of each other, and I thought, my god,

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Speaker 1: this guy is crazy. But his plan there was to

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Speaker 1: create this sort of immediate impression without giving her time

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Speaker 1: to kind of stare at it and think of it

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Speaker 1: for a while. Just real quick boom lights off. Okay,

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Speaker 1: what did you think? Yeah, that's very interesting too, because

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Speaker 1: you would have a different impression of it as in

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Speaker 1: a split second than you what if you're standing there

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Speaker 1: letting its weirdness kind of take over the logical you know,

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Speaker 1: like your logical brain over and be like, what's the

426
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 1: point of this, like instead of just have in a

427
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: fully emotional reaction. Yeah. And I think we'll see that

428
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: in Crystal and and Jean Claude's work moving on. Is

429
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: that the reaction to the work, the perception of the work,

430
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: is as important as the work itself. Like they're doing,

431
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: their art is meant to be seen, you know, it's

432
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 1: not meant to display their talents or anything like that.

433
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: It's literally for the viewer. Yeah, and and for the

434
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,400
Speaker 1: time that it's up right, that's what's It's a lot

435
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: like performance in that way, where it's like it's not

436
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: like a piece of theater is not done until someone

437
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: is watching it and taking it in, receiving it, and

438
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: then it's gone and then it's over. And yeah, she

439
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 1: she did say, you know, wow, he's crazy, but she

440
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,719
Speaker 1: actually was impressed to some degree. Art wasn't something she

441
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: had spent a lot of time thinking about but she

442
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 1: appreciated the alternative perspective, so they started spending a little

443
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:56,959
Speaker 1: more time together and before long they were having a

444
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: secret affair. So I guess, actually this brings us to

445
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 1: this episode side piece hip. Well, Christo was a side

446
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: piece for the sister, but Jean Claude was a side

447
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: piece for Philippe. So there's a lot of side pieces

448
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: going on here, many a side piece happening. But no, no, no.

449
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: Despite their elicted affair, Jean Claude was an engaged woman

450
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: and she had promised to marry the man her mother

451
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: thought was the one for her, and so she and

452
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: Philippe walked down the aisle and were married in ninety nine,

453
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: even though at the time Jean Claude was pregnant with

454
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: Christo's baby scandal, so French and so pretty much right

455
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: after their honeymoon, she divorced Philip and married Christo in

456
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 1: October of that same year. I'm like, why did she

457
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: bother marrying him? Well, I'll say that from what I read,

458
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: it's reculated that she was pregnant at the time, and

459
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: if she was, she might not have known she was

460
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: pregnant at the time. My question is that if it's like, oh,

461
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: now I've just found out I'm pregnant, I should probably

462
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: marry the file. But my question is, how did she

463
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:14,719
Speaker 1: know it was Cristo unless she and Philippe were not

464
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: sleeping together, you know, so maybe things weren't so hot

465
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 1: between those two, and that's why she was trying to

466
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: get some artist action on the side. This guy is

467
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: good with his hands, his long, thin hand, but I

468
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: previously thought were gay, but they're not. Obviously her mother

469
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: was not happy about this, and she actually refused to

470
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: speak to her for over two years. Jean Claude said

471
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: quote they loved Cristo like a son, but not as

472
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: a son in law. So a few months later their

473
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: son was born and they named him Cyril, and Cristo

474
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: gave Jean Claude a crash course in the history of art.

475
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,719
Speaker 1: The Guardian wrote that quote. Up until then, Jean Claude

476
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,199
Speaker 1: had thought the Louver, with its superb wooden floors, was

477
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: fit for a legal roller skating spreeze. By the way,

478
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: when is that happening? And can I come man? This

479
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing where I'm like, if if,

480
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: if we've gotten a last Man on Earth situation, and

481
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: like if everybody just got raptured and there was no

482
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: one left but me. I'm getting my roller skates. I'm

483
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: going to the louve and I'm skated around. I'll break

484
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: the window if I have to. What you're going to

485
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: do about it? So, Paris, you should have a designated

486
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: roller skating day once a month. Can't crash whatever. We find.

487
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 1: People are very careful on roller skates. I think people

488
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: are very careful with art in general. They ever really

489
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: ever touch it. Yeah, there's no problem with nothing to

490
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: worry about. It'll be fine. Tourists are very respectable. So

491
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: she's learning all about art and from this point on

492
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: she got very interested in Crystal's artwork and became an

493
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: enthusiastic participant. Crystal was struggling to learn French. I mean

494
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: he struggled with language all the time. Time. He was

495
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: always way better at expressing himself through his art, and

496
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: Gean Claude became his voice outside of art. She took

497
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: on the role that his older brother and Nanni had

498
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: been for him when he was younger, and in return,

499
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: he helped her break free from her more traditional upbringing,

500
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: showing her all new ways to express herself, and he

501
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: even picked out this bright, fiery red color for her hair,

502
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: which she died and kept that way for the rest

503
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: of her life. Their first work together in Paris was

504
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one. The Berlin Wall had been erected

505
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: at this point, and as an artistic reaction to this,

506
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: in addition to violence that was taking place during the

507
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: Algerian War for Independence against France, Christo and Jean Claude

508
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: arranged eighty nine oil barrels on their side, stacked up

509
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: between the walls of the narrow street rough Visconti. It

510
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: was called larideau de faire, or the iron curtain, and

511
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: it obstructed most of the traffic of the Paris Left Bank,

512
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: and Christo said of the work in quote, coming from

513
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: a communist country as a political refugee, I was eager

514
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: to do my own iron curtain. They had applied for

515
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: a permit for the work, but it was denied and

516
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: they were almost arrested. Jean Claude allegedly talked the police

517
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: down and convinced them that it was necessary to stay

518
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: up for at least a few hours, so it stood

519
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: for eight hours in total. As photographers critics and fellow

520
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: artists came by to see the work and meet the

521
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: couple behind it. Just pretty cool. I feel like she's

522
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: probably like, okay, police, let me know what she was like. Okay, police,

523
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: you may come and take down all of the oil

524
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: barrels as you will. Lots of hot, sweaty work for

525
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: you today. You can leave it up for a little

526
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: while and we will break it down up to you,

527
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: up to you. Appealing to their laziness, Yes, exactly, She's like,

528
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: I have seen you at work, and I know you'd

529
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: like to see And of course some marveled at its brilliance.

530
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: Some were furious and how disruptive it was, and they

531
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: failed to see the point and this type of environmental

532
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: work and the public's reaction to it would prove to

533
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: be a constant throughout their lives. And Crystal continued his

534
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: fascination with wrapping objects too, but it was Jean Claude

535
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: who encouraged him to go bigger than just pink cans

536
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: and household objects, I mean tables, chairs, whole cars, bigger, bigger, bigger.

537
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: Together they even decided that one day they would wrap

538
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and after the attention

539
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: they got from their iron curtain work, they were able

540
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: to start actually going bigger. Together they would imagine these

541
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: projects and conceptualize it, come up with the ideas, and

542
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: then Christo, having the more like tangible artistic talent, would

543
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: sketch them out and make little models, and he would

544
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: sell those for the money he needed to create the

545
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: work itself. They would then hire found objects and higher

546
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,719
Speaker 1: assistance to help do the rapping, and suddenly Christo was,

547
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: I think it seems unknowingly recreating his youth in Bulgaria,

548
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: and there's dozens of people all coming together to wrap

549
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: these objects in tarps. The difference here, I think is

550
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: maybe what his art was all about. These people, first

551
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: of all, were getting paid. They were always very insistent

552
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: on paying everyone that worked with them. And beyond that,

553
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: they weren't doing it to create some sort of deception

554
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: like those wrapped haystacks were trying to show everyone how

555
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: beautiful Communist Bulgaria was. They were doing it for basically

556
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: no reason at all. In fact, Christo referred to his

557
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: own work proudly as quote irrational, irresponsible, useless. If only

558
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: more artists admitted so. Together, they agreed that they would

559
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: credit their work simply under the name Christo, partly to

560
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: avoid confusing dealers and the public, but also because the

561
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: art world was surprise, surprise, super shitty and sexist. But

562
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: that decision would change in the future, and as their

563
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: reputation grew, so did the scale of their projects. And

564
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: we'll get into the irrational, irresponsible, useless, and ridiculous creations

565
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: they brought to the world right after that. Welcome back

566
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: to the show My ARTSI FARTSI Friends Farts. Christo and

567
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: Jean Claude were almost in separable. Jean Claude said they

568
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: did everything together except three things. Quote, we never fly

569
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: on the same airplane. I do not draw, and I

570
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: have always deprived him of the joy of working with

571
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: our accountants would deprived me of a joy, or I guess,

572
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: give me an accountant, and then we have the joy

573
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: of working with them. If we had an accountant, I

574
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: would glad deprive you of the joy of working with them.

575
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: The only thing they cared more about than each other

576
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: was the art that they created together, so they always

577
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 1: flew on separate flights so that if one plane crashed,

578
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: the other could continue to work on their projects, which

579
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: is a little dark. I have to say, we're planes

580
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: crashing a lot in the I don't think that was

581
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: necessarily a thing. I think it was just that sort

582
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 1: of you know, kind of unfounded belief that planes are

583
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: likely to crash. I mean I have it too, you

584
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's just a crazy idea.

585
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: It doesn't statistically line up with anything. Like they shouldn't

586
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 1: have ever been in the same car together. They shouldn't

587
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 1: have you know, this was really what they were worried about.

588
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: They shouldn't have done a lot of things together. They

589
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: probably did, but you know, people get in their heads

590
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: about planes. Sure well, and I'm sure flying commercially was

591
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 1: pretty new at this point. Yeah, maybe it's just like

592
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:51,799
Speaker 1: I don't know going to happen with that thing. But

593
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: in ninety FO they and their son moved from Paris

594
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: to New York City. They took a boat again. I

595
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: guess they weren't worried about the boats sinking, and they

596
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: got to New York and they just loved it immediately.

597
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 1: Jean Claude said, quote, as we were standing on the

598
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: prow of the s S France. There it was in

599
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 1: front of us, and Christo took me in his arms,

600
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: and he said, do you like it? I love it.

601
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: I'll give it to you. It's all yours. I love it.

602
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: They just love each other so much. It's beautiful. It's

603
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: so great when two weirdos like understand each other like

604
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: no one else does, because that kind of love is

605
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: I feel like I think we've got a little bit

606
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: of that where it's like it's just at the end

607
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: of the day, nobody gets me but you, and I

608
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: think that's they had this. It was so cool. They

609
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: settled in and they got right to work. They created

610
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 1: a series called storefronts, which were these like wooden facades

611
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: that kind of resembled shop windows, and they would wrap

612
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. They wrapped huge inflated research balloons,

613
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixty nine, the director of the Chicago

614
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: Museum of Contemporary Art invited them to come to Chicago

615
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: and wrapped the whole damn building. He wanted them to

616
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: do it while the museum was open to the public.

617
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: And this was a pretty drab, boring looking building that

618
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: Christo said was actually quote perfect because it looks like

619
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: a package already, and its facade is a fake wall

620
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: covering the original structure. That makes me think of like,

621
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,439
Speaker 1: you know, it's wrapped in a box. It's putting a bag,

622
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: you know, So it's like I'm putting the box. The

623
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 1: box has got a box, and now I'm putting it

624
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: in the back like that. Yeah. Um, and you should

625
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: look up pictures of these, because I don't know if

626
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: we're describing it well when it When we say wrapped,

627
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 1: I mean it was tightly wrapped in fabric the whole building. Yeah.

628
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: It really looks like a giant Christmas present or something. Right,

629
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: it's literally fully wrapped. You can't see any of the building,

630
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: I mean, except you can still get in it of

631
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: course door, but you can't see any of the building

632
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: itself anymore. It's just the fabric. It's very cool. Christo

633
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: Young Claude dot Net says quote the finished package had

634
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: a stateliness and sobriety that considerably enhanced the building. The

635
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: museum was tightly swathed in heavy tarpaulins, as if bundled

636
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: against the city's blustery winds and snow. I bet it

637
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: was like, thank you God, it's freezing here. Reason my

638
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:21,279
Speaker 1: cornis is off. I'm freezing my freeze off out here. Eventually,

639
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: of course it came down, but all of Christo and

640
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: Gean Claude's work was meant to be temporary. Gean Claude

641
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,320
Speaker 1: likened their work to a rainbow more beautiful and exciting

642
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: because of its temporary nature, calling out quote the quality

643
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 1: of love and tenderness that we human beings have for

644
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: what does not last. I think that's gorgeous. It kind

645
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,720
Speaker 1: of makes me think a lot too, of those um

646
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:51,479
Speaker 1: sand paintings sort of Budis monks will do that. People

647
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: will go out on the beach and the dudes really

648
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: intricate designs on the beach. And the whole point is

649
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,479
Speaker 1: when it's over, the Buddhist monks sweep all the stand

650
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: away and after days and days of work, it's it's gone,

651
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: and like the or the tide comes in and takes

652
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: the design away from the stand and you're kind of watching,

653
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: like why would you put all that work into something

654
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 1: that's just going to disappear? And it's just a great

655
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: metaphor for life, the temporary nature of existence. And yeah,

656
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I love permanence. And I'm a

657
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 1: you know, a bit of a sentimental hoarder, like a

658
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: hang onto things that matter to me and stuff, and

659
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: I'm glad that there's still these ancient works of art

660
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: that are still around. I think that's so necessary and amazing.

661
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: But I really do like this reminder that everything is

662
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 1: temporary to some to one degree or another, and that

663
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: we're only here for a very brief period of time.

664
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: And I think it does add this little level of

665
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: appreciation to it because like, I've been fortunate enough to

666
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: go to the Louver and see the Mona Lisa, you know,

667
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: and I I know it's there still, Like I it's

668
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: not like, oh man, I ought to see it in

669
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: the only moment it existed, and that's insane to me.

670
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: I'm like, I, oh, it's it's I can always go back.

671
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't always just go back, but it'll

672
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: be there probably forever, at least forever. To me, when

673
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: I'm roller skating has the Last Man on Earth, I'll

674
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 1: go look at all exactly. Um, so there is something

675
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 1: I think extra special about. Holy crap, I just caught

676
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: this in this very brief moment. It is like seeing

677
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: a rainbow or something. Um, that's so cool to me.

678
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: It's basically the only real non bungible token. So they

679
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:40,720
Speaker 1: closed out the nineteen sixties with a piece called Wrapped Coast,

680
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: where Cristal and Gean Claude with one workers, wrapped the

681
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,280
Speaker 1: entire coast of Sydney's Little Bay, a cliff lined South

682
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: Pacific shore about one and a half miles long and

683
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,439
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty eight hundred feet wide and eight

684
00:39:55,680 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: five ft high. They used one million square feet of

685
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 1: erosion control fabric and every worker and climber was paid,

686
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: with the exception of eleven architecture students who refused to

687
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: accept any payment. But I do love that too, that

688
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: they made such a point of paying everyone, because art

689
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: is worth money and so is time, and it takes

690
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: both of those things. And anyway, that's my soap. Well,

691
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 1: and they continued this financial method throughout their careers. There

692
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: were no sponsors, there were no patrons, there was no

693
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: state funding. They simply sold all of their preparatory works, sketches, models,

694
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: whatever they made to kind of prepare the work was

695
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: sold off at galleries and auctions, and they raised millions

696
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: of dollars over the years that they would spend on

697
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: these projects, and like you said, often pay to other people.

698
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: It's like a kickstarter. Yeah, it's like the Otter in

699
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, like you get this sketch if

700
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: you pay me to do the final thing. And they

701
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: were they were so insistent often that like, we're not

702
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,879
Speaker 1: making any money off of this. It's all going into

703
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: the project. Like they were their own little private, you know, nonprofit,

704
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: but they weren't really a nonprofit. They just they just

705
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 1: funded themselves. That that's amazing to be doing incredible citywide

706
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 1: works of art for millions and millions of dollars and

707
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 1: not take any funding. Uh, not take any donors. Nobody,

708
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: nobody owned any of their art. Yeah, it's like mind blowing,

709
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: I know, I mean because I'm sure it mattered a

710
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,359
Speaker 1: lot to him, particularly to be like I don't want

711
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: anyone to have any say and what we do and

712
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: when do we do it and how we do it.

713
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it my way and John Claude's

714
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: way period. Right. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of the

715
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: French artists that we met here in Atlanta that came

716
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: to work on maybe a project with us, and I

717
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: can't remember if we've talked about this before, but they

718
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: were so baffled at the notion of fundraising. God, they

719
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 1: were like with the government would not to give you

720
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: the money for this art project that the city wants.

721
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:56,839
Speaker 1: We were like, oh, oh, you're not joking. I thought

722
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: you were kidding, he said, He said, what is fundre zing?

723
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: I was like, well, step into my one oh one class.

724
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 1: My guests an experienced middle aged artist from France who

725
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: had done huge, elaborate works of art throughout the streets

726
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: of many international cities. They closed down miles and miles

727
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:18,280
Speaker 1: of main roads in Paris and did these really dope

728
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,879
Speaker 1: like moving sculpture, installation performance thing and the man did

729
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: not know what fundraising was. He didn't have to know.

730
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: Very frustrating, how angry I was like the picture Hades

731
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: from the Disney movie Hercules with the flames of me,

732
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: flames on the sides of my face. And the other

733
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,760
Speaker 1: thing about Christo and Jean Claude's work is they took years,

734
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: sometimes decades to go from concept to reality. In the

735
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, they created works like Valley Curtain, which was

736
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: this enormous orange curtain that was hung between two mountains

737
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: over Colorado State Highway three. It looks super crazy and cool.

738
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: It would have been nuts to drive under that. And

739
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,359
Speaker 1: then in ninety three, After more than seventeen years as

740
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 1: a stateless person, Christo became a US citizen. For someone

741
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 1: who struggled so much with language and was so much

742
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: more comfortable with artistic expression, New York City was the

743
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: home he'd always dreamed of. He said. It was quote

744
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: the only city in the world where you can speak

745
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: any broken language and everything is going to be okay,

746
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: he said. Unlike Paris, nobody in New York made comments

747
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: if you didn't speak the language well. And in young

748
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: Claude got her US citizenship as well. I think it's

749
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: interesting you point out that he was seventeen years state lists. Um,

750
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: it's almost it's just throwing me back to when he

751
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: started rapping things and putting him in corners, and he

752
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: was talking about moving into a house like I wonder

753
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 1: if he was also not only thinking about how he

754
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 1: left Bulgaria, but also kind of wishing for like a

755
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: permanent like I'm moving into a spot and I live here,

756
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: like a settled feeling. Yeah, there's a lot in his

757
00:43:57,920 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: early life about how difficult it was for him to

758
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: attle anywhere or feel at home anywhere, But he never

759
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:06,879
Speaker 1: he never talked about bul Bulgaria. He had such a

760
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: difficult time there, and he resented, you know, what they

761
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:11,879
Speaker 1: did to his father so much and everything that, uh,

762
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: he totally renounced his citizenship and didn't claim that as

763
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 1: a home at all, so he literally had no nationality.

764
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 1: Art critic David Bourdon called their work quote revelation through concealment,

765
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,919
Speaker 1: So wrapping these objects concealed their details and revealed their raw,

766
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: true form. Christo and Jean Claude often claimed that the

767
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 1: sole purpose of their work was to bring beauty and

768
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: joy to the world. They were also very in tune

769
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: with their audience, which was unique in the world of

770
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: famous artists. They thought public interaction was a huge part

771
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 1: of what their art was all about. Like we said,

772
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: receiving the art was part of the whole process. So

773
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: they often guest lectured at universities and museums across the world,

774
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: diving into deep conversation with the public about what their

775
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: work meant and how it was perceived. And Christal said

776
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 1: in an interview with Serpentine Galleries, quote, I enjoy the

777
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 1: things that I do so much. Fortunately, what I am

778
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: doing is not a traditional studio practice. Probably this is

779
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 1: the secret we see so many people outside of the

780
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: art world from Japanese rice farmers, parliamentarians and engineers to

781
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: all kinds of bureaucrats. We are deeply involved with society,

782
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: real society and community, not an illustration of society. It's

783
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: very enchanting. I love this so much, Like they've got

784
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: such a bright attitude about the world, and it is

785
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: such a contrast to the typical image of an artist.

786
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: And that's one thing that some of these articles mentioned

787
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: is like traditionally these uh you know, famous well known

788
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: uh areadite artists, like the ones that are really like

789
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: changing the world, are very resistant to interact with their

790
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: audiences or to try and think it's too much work

791
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: to try and understand them, so they just sort of

792
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: put a wall up. And these guys were the total opposite.

793
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: They were they loved it. They were having so much

794
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 1: fun doing what they were doing and doing it together

795
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: that um, they just had this whole bright, cheerful attitude

796
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: and and it really brings a lot of I think

797
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: it it injects a lot of joy into looking at

798
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: their work too. Yeah. But I also I wanted to

799
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: say you had mentioned the revelation through concealment thing being

800
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: such a big part of it because you were by

801
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: wrapping the building. You noticed it period, like just because

802
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: it's something you drove by every day, so you just

803
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: kind of stopped seeing it, and then now you were

804
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: seeing it in a totally new way, and it just

805
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: made you realize, oh, yeah, that building is there. Yeah exactly.

806
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: We talked about this, and we have mentioned, i think

807
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: many times on this show our our honeymoon because it

808
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: was such a transformative experience for us being being in Europe.

809
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: And I recalled the same thing from my study abroad.

810
00:46:55,360 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: Uh sorry, just strained my eyeball. Uh where you know,

811
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,359
Speaker 1: we were in Tuscany and you walk outside and you're like,

812
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:09,760
Speaker 1: holy shit, what am I looking at? How does this exist?

813
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: And every time you see it, your brain explodes and

814
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: your eyeballs melt and you're like, this is unbelievable. And

815
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: I was like, but surely if you're born there, if

816
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: you live there all the time, you grow up there,

817
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: I've I'm sure you recognize that it's beautiful, But it

818
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: doesn't blow your mind constantly. You kind of kind of

819
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: blends in. You probably kind of forget about it a

820
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 1: little bit. It's just your normal world. So somebody comes

821
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: along takes a big shiny silver piece of fabric, and like,

822
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,399
Speaker 1: if it covers the hills of Tuscany and there, now

823
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: there's this shining, silvery glow, you're gonna be like, WHOA, Yeah,

824
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: you know what. I never even look at these hills,

825
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 1: but now I am, and I'm totally appreciating them in

826
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: a different way. I think there's something to that. Now.

827
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: Jean Claude conceived of the idea for surrounded islands, and

828
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: these were eleven islands off the coast of Miami that

829
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: they surrounded by six and a half million square feet

830
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: of floating pink fabric. This was the first crystal thing

831
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: I ever saw in an art book. Uh. This was

832
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: a concept that she developed in nineteen eighty and they

833
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 1: were able to finally do it in three and it

834
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: remained there for two weeks. And if you haven't seen it,

835
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 1: it is you can find pictures of it everywhere and it's, uh,

836
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: it's really bizarre. It really just they took these little

837
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: islands and just like that, they're surrounded with pink fabrics.

838
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: They kind of look like lily pads a little bit um,

839
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:35,319
Speaker 1: but just the trees poking up in the middle, and

840
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,720
Speaker 1: then this giant circle of bright, bright pink, Jean Claude

841
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,839
Speaker 1: said in a sixty Minutes interview quote. One woman came

842
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: up to me and was very angry and said, I

843
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: saw it on television. It's very ugly. It looks like

844
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: a giant spill of pepto bismo Not even an hour later,

845
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 1: an elderly gentleman approached me and said, bless you, I

846
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: have never seen anything more beautiful in my life. It

847
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: looks like a giant spill of pepto bismol. Now you

848
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: haven't art. Beauty is in the eye. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

849
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: that just says it all, doesn't it. And they they're

850
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,759
Speaker 1: they're laughing their asses off about that because they're like, exactly, yeah,

851
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: I mean, and that's part of art too. That's so

852
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: interesting is like two people are seeing the exact same thing,

853
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: and they even are seeing literally they're comparing it to

854
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: the same thing, and they find it beautiful and horrible. Yeah.

855
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: And what I love about Christo and Jean Claude is

856
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: they're laughing about these reactions and they're not saying, well

857
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 1: you don't understand, or well then it's not for you,

858
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,399
Speaker 1: go away or anything like that. They're like, cool, yeah,

859
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: I love that you hated it as much as I

860
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,439
Speaker 1: love that you loved it. Like, you know, they want joy,

861
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: they want people to find appreciation in their work. They're

862
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: doing it to bring people, you know, some sort of

863
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 1: excited feeling. So I don't think they're like excited about

864
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: someone hating it, but they're also just like, that's what

865
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 1: it is. It's just here. Yeah, I'm not saying anything.

866
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: I'm just showing it to you. Think what you Yeah,

867
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to give you an opinion of something, right,

868
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:05,919
Speaker 1: your opinion is valid whatever it is. And of course,

869
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 1: again coming from such a repressed background, that's probably got

870
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 1: a huge lot to do with it too. It'd be like,

871
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:11,959
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to be telling you how to feel

872
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: about exactly. But the problem with Surrounded Islands was that

873
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,280
Speaker 1: to get the permits, they had to do the entire

874
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: thing under Christo's name. Now, often Jean Claude was the

875
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,359
Speaker 1: one out there negotiating and pushing and talking with the

876
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: you know, bureaucrats and the environmentalists and everything, But they

877
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: couldn't mention at all that Jean Claude was involved or

878
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: or the brainchild behind this piece. After the project was

879
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: in place. Then Cristo publicly insisted that this was all

880
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 1: Jean Claude's concept, but they knew that if they lead

881
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: with that, they just flat out wouldn't have gotten the

882
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 1: permits because of sexism, because they were like, well, this,

883
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: if it's a man's idea, it's a brilliant work of art.

884
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 1: It's a woman's idea, that's crazy. You know, why aren't

885
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 1: you at home making me a sandwich? Why don't you

886
00:50:57,239 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 1: wrap a sandwich in pink plastic and put that in

887
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:03,399
Speaker 1: my launch back, then bring it to me. I'll tell

888
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: you my opinion of it right away. But that all changed.

889
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 1: They were doing a Q and A during an art

890
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: college lecture when a man asked about Cyril, their son,

891
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: and he was like, how does Cristo's art affects your son, Cyril?

892
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 1: How is he being raised? Dotat on and on, But

893
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: nowhere in the question did he ever mention Gean Claude.

894
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 1: And they had been discussing how to credit gen Claude

895
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 1: more for some time now, but this was like the

896
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: final straw, and they announced then that not only their

897
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 1: works moving forward, but in fact all their work retroactively.

898
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: They had done it together, so it needed to be

899
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: credited as Cristo and Gean Claude, because while Christo was

900
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: the one who sketched and designed their works, Gean Claude

901
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: was half of the pair that developed their concepts. And

902
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: plus she pretty much single handedly negotiated with those government agencies,

903
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: with the environmentalists, with the press when it came to

904
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: getting their work approved. Um. Because again she's very organized person,

905
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: so she's like, this is what I can be doing

906
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: while you're sketching. I can't sketch for ship. And as

907
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: Kristen Capps writes on prospect dot org, quote if Jean

908
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: Claude's portion of their work was in large part managing

909
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: and bringing about the wrapping up the pont Neuff bridge

910
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: and gold fabric, despite the mayor's protestations, the process is

911
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:30,919
Speaker 1: the work. Gean Claude's battle for recognition has helped shed

912
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 1: light on the art world's discomfort with recognizing both women

913
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:39,399
Speaker 1: and the process behind creating large scale work. And I

914
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: love that so much, because yeah, it's so easy to

915
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: be like, well, anyway, you got a permit, but this

916
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:47,240
Speaker 1: guy wrapped a thing, and it's like, well, you couldn't

917
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:49,919
Speaker 1: have wrapped it without the permit that you need all

918
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: that stuff, that all of that is part of it,

919
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: I should say part of the work of art, just

920
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: literally the work. Yeah, exactly five they wrapped the Berlin

921
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: reich Stock Building and they took a million square feet

922
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,919
Speaker 1: of silver fabric and fastened it with blue rope. It's

923
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: really quite beautiful. You can look up pictures, and as

924
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: strange as it seems and as tough as it can

925
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 1: be to justify without knowing any of the history behind it,

926
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: it's really cool. It's just kind of a cool looking thing.

927
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 1: The wrapping was sort of a symbol of Germany being

928
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: united and Berlin becoming one of the world's great cities again.

929
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: So it's literally almost like a gift wrapped thing where

930
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, and now I'm opening it up and toda,

931
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 1: here's Berlin. Welcome back. All that old ship's over. And

932
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: you might be familiar with their two thousand and five project,

933
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: the Gates in New York's Central Park. The official title

934
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: is The Gates Central Park, New York seventy nine to

935
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, in reference to the year they

936
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: actually proposed the project. Until they were finally able to

937
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 1: do it. Geez, So it's a long asked time six years.

938
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: So this was seven thousand, five hundred and three gates

939
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: sixteen feet high and eleven feet wide, made from steel

940
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: and draped in saffron fabric from Germany, and they were

941
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: positioned along twenty three miles of paths throughout Central Park.

942
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: Christo and John Claude hired and trained hundred workers to

943
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 1: reply to any questions that passers by had as they

944
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 1: walked through the gates. I think that's so cool. I

945
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: think that's like goes back to them really caring about

946
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 1: their audience again totally. You know. They were like, we

947
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 1: want people to engage with this, and we're not gonna

948
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: be able to answer everyone's questions. They paid a hundred

949
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 1: people to learn, you know, to hear what they had

950
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: to say about it, and then to go out into

951
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: the park and just like, hey, you know, anybody go

952
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: any questions like what a job? I would take that job.

953
00:54:50,960 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: So what's the big idea in Bulgaria? Crystal? And they

954
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: funded the work themselves, thought to cost between five and

955
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: ten million dollars, and the combined amount of steel used

956
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: for the project was as much as two thirds of

957
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,080
Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower. They didn't want to disrupt the park

958
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 1: at all, so they constructed heavy pillars with metal bases

959
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't have to dig holes and all of

960
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: that too. It's sort of like them wrapping the coast

961
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 1: of Sydney with erosion fabric. They're very like careful with

962
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: the environment they were doing, and The New York Times

963
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: called it a stunning success, writing quote, in the winter light,

964
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: the bright fabrics seemed to warm the fields, flickering like

965
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 1: a flame against the barren trees. It was clear that

966
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 1: The Gates is a work of pure joy, a vast

967
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 1: populist spectacle of goodwill and simple eloquence. The first great

968
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 1: public art event of the twenty first century's cool. But

969
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, before the project was built, but

970
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 1: after it had been approved by the mayor Bloomberg, Charlie Finch,

971
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,520
Speaker 1: an author and critic for art Net magazine, wrote a

972
00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: condemnation of the piece and said quote, in case you

973
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 1: don't know who Jean Claude is, she's, in our opinion,

974
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: the vulgar, opportunistic wife of overrated, pussy whipped artist Christo. Yeah,

975
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: why is this guy writing anything? Oh my god, I

976
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 1: hate him. This guy sucks. It's not a good criticism though.

977
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 1: It's just like this guy loves his wife is a gay.

978
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:39,320
Speaker 1: I love your wife. But as Kristin Capps writes, quote,

979
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 1: Charlie Finch's vile attitude registered the more polite and broadly

980
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: held opinion that Jean Claude played second fiddle to Christo.

981
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 1: When New York Times first reviewed The Gates, they dropped

982
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:54,880
Speaker 1: Sean Claude's name altogether, according to Kristin Capps, and Christo

983
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 1: blasted the New York Times in a press conference and

984
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: called on them to recognize Jean Claude, and so subsequently,

985
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:03,640
Speaker 1: The Times was very careful to include both artists names

986
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 1: and every mentioned. Their critic, Michael Kimmelman said on Sixty

987
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: Minutes in two thousand five, quote, his projects are a

988
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 1: whole enterprise, and therefore if she's involved in much of that,

989
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: then I think he quite rightly sees her as a

990
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 1: genuine collaborator. She is essential to it. Yeah, Okay, this

991
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: has given me Marsha Lucas vibes a lot too, because

992
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: she was always like, well, if I don't cut any

993
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: movies besides George's, They're all gonna think, Well, George lets

994
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: his wife play around in the editing PM instead of

995
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: like I have a talent of my own that I'm

996
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: actually contributing to this whole project. Well, and it's still

997
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:41,959
Speaker 1: even separated them to say things like um, like Mayor

998
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: Bloomberg said at the time, Jean Claude is essential to

999
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: his work or she he said it would never happen

1000
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 1: without her, and Kristen Capps wrote like, yeah, that's cool,

1001
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 1: except you wouldn't say, Uh, Simon and Garfunkele wouldn't be

1002
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 1: the same without Simon, Like that's an obvious given, Like

1003
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: they are a pair. They do their work together, So

1004
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 1: it's kind of silly to make a point that, like

1005
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 1: there's Christo and he wouldn't be able to do it

1006
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,160
Speaker 1: without his wife, Jean Claude, like they are one thing.

1007
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 1: Still kind of denigrating her her still making her like

1008
00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 1: a bonus. Yeah, yeah, her contribution totally. Christo said of

1009
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: his work, quote, it's all about freedom. Nobody can buy

1010
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 1: this project, nobody owns it, nobody can charge tickets. They're

1011
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:36,520
Speaker 1: here for a few days and then they're gone. Jean

1012
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: Claude said, quote, we do not build messages, We do

1013
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: not build symbols. It's only a work of art, nothing else.

1014
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: Of the giant wrapped structures like the Reeks, Dog and

1015
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 1: pont Neuf and the seven thousand gates in Central Park,

1016
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: Kimmelman said, quote people walk away from these things smiling.

1017
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,960
Speaker 1: It radiates something very positive and it changes something you

1018
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: see every day of your life, and you see it fresh.

1019
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: Their works aren't necessarily metaphors, and they say time and

1020
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 1: time again that what they're doing isn't saying anything, but

1021
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:12,640
Speaker 1: there is meaning to it. Christo says that when people

1022
00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 1: ask him why he makes this art, that he came

1023
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 1: from somewhere where his art was very restricted in control,

1024
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 1: there was no freedom of expression. But now living in

1025
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 1: places like France and America, having the freedom to create

1026
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: art without a reason is the reason to create it,

1027
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 1: which is exactly the quote that that made me, that

1028
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:34,800
Speaker 1: won me over, I guess because I definitely was looking

1029
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 1: them up going one. It was a big idea, literally,

1030
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:40,120
Speaker 1: and yeah, he was like, well, the thing is is

1031
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,440
Speaker 1: that we used to have to have a reason for

1032
00:59:42,480 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 1: everything we did. It was for the good of Bulgaria,

1033
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:47,520
Speaker 1: for the good of communism, because I told you so,

1034
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:50,160
Speaker 1: you don't have any choice in this. And it was

1035
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: like I kind of like the chaos of like why

1036
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 1: why not? The reason is why not? The reason is

1037
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:58,080
Speaker 1: nobody told me to and nobody told me not to,

1038
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: and so I'm doing it. That's it? That is that

1039
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: not the most ultimate expression of freedom that I had

1040
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 1: no reason to do this. I'm just doing it because

1041
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 1: I'm a human being in this world and that's my

1042
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: whole thing. In in the most positive way, Christo's work

1043
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: is like distinctly American, right, because here's someone who came

1044
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: with basically nothing from an oppressive country, trying to escape,

1045
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: trying to make a better life for himself, and found

1046
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 1: this world where he wasn't being judged for his accent

1047
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: or his you know, ability with language or anything like that,

1048
01:00:31,680 --> 01:00:34,800
Speaker 1: and he could do literally anything that popped into his head.

1049
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: He could do it as long as it wasn't bothering

1050
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: anybody else or hurting anybody else. He could just do

1051
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: anything that he dreamed of. That's so, isn't that's like

1052
01:00:43,280 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: the ideal, That's what we want to be, you know really,

1053
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 1: And it must have felt like just busting a whole

1054
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 1: wide open door to the world. And it's not like

1055
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 1: everybody has that experience in America. It's just the it's

1056
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: the ideal image that we're striving for. And when asked

1057
01:01:01,080 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 1: for advice from young artists, Christo said, quote, myself and

1058
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: Gean Claude would never judge other artists. Who are we

1059
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 1: to judge somebody? Art is an extremely personal thing. It's

1060
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: not a profession. Art is an existence. In art, you

1061
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: live everything, so I cannot give advice. The only thing

1062
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,040
Speaker 1: you should do in art is to think and question

1063
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:22,480
Speaker 1: what it is that you like to do and do it.

1064
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:25,600
Speaker 1: The biggest problem is to find what you like to do.

1065
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 1: I love that too, because that's such a statement on

1066
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 1: what life is about, which is not to like make

1067
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 1: a bunch of money or leave behind a exciting legacy, whatever, whatever,

1068
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:41,440
Speaker 1: trying to convince people of something, yeah, or change the world.

1069
01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:44,040
Speaker 1: Even it's just like what do you? Where? Are you

1070
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,160
Speaker 1: happy in this place? Where? Who are your people? Who

1071
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: are you? And you can't know who your people are

1072
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:51,480
Speaker 1: and what you're happy with until you know who you

1073
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 1: are a little bit. Yeah, exactly, So I think that's

1074
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:56,840
Speaker 1: really cool. It really just cuts through the pretension, you know,

1075
01:01:56,960 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: and it's just like whatever we're goofing around, you know.

1076
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:05,480
Speaker 1: He never returned to Bulgaria and he never spoke Bulgarian,

1077
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 1: even to his family, but Bulgaria loves Christo. He was

1078
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:13,919
Speaker 1: honored by the Academy of Fine Arts and Sophia, where

1079
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 1: he studied for two years, but he ended up having

1080
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 1: the award delivered to him in New York. He was like,

1081
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: if I go, they might not let me come back. Yeah,

1082
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 1: I mean it might be part of that, or just like,

1083
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to go back to an

1084
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 1: abusive place where you had a bad time. And it's

1085
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: it's so interesting because Bulgaria totally owns him. They're like Christo,

1086
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 1: he's a Bulgarian artist, he's from here, he's the best,

1087
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: and he's just never associated himself from it. Really And yeah,

1088
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, we could go on and on and on

1089
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 1: about every single piece of work they ever created, right,

1090
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 1: there's a lot. But the point here is that they

1091
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: did it all together. They were completely attached, two sides

1092
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:53,200
Speaker 1: of the same brain. They shared a vision and a

1093
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: form of expression that was a combination of their experiences

1094
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 1: and their love for each other. And you know, there

1095
01:02:59,720 --> 01:03:05,080
Speaker 1: are so they're passionate folks. And Jean Claude said that

1096
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 1: that did lead to some volatility. Quote. We are terribly

1097
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 1: argumentative and scream and criticize each other non stop, but

1098
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 1: it's very helpful. It makes us think Christo is right

1099
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: of the time. I love it. She's like, I mean,

1100
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: she's like, I like that. She's like, he's the art guy,

1101
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna give him a little more credit than me,

1102
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 1: but he ain't always right, and you kind of. You

1103
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 1: really should go through and look at the works they

1104
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: made over the years because it's some really fascinating stuff.

1105
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 1: The pictures are just mind blowing and I would love

1106
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,000
Speaker 1: to have experienced some of these. I never got to

1107
01:03:42,040 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 1: see one in person, but they seem so cool. But sadly,

1108
01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:49,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, Jean Claude suffered a brain aneurysm,

1109
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: and she died shortly after from complications. She was seventy

1110
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:55,920
Speaker 1: four years old. But much like they had said, if

1111
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 1: there was ever a plane crash, Christo dedicated himself further

1112
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:02,840
Speaker 1: to their work. His first major project after her death

1113
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 1: was floating piers in Italy, which was something they had

1114
01:04:06,400 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 1: conceived together to be able to walk on water, and

1115
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:12,680
Speaker 1: so this was in two thousand and sixteen. He used

1116
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 1: nearly two miles of this bright saffron fabric to bridge

1117
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: two small islands to the mainland in Lake Izzio in

1118
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: northern Italy. There's a documentary that came out in twenty

1119
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 1: nineteen about this, called Walking on Water. He then dedicated

1120
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:31,560
Speaker 1: himself to one of the very first projects they'd ever conceived.

1121
01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:35,280
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty one, just after their first public work,

1122
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 1: the Iron Curtain, they had said that one day they

1123
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:42,800
Speaker 1: would wrap the Arc de Triomphe. Now nearly sixty years later,

1124
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 1: the work was ready to be realized, and this would

1125
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 1: be the first work done in their signature wrapping styles

1126
01:04:49,800 --> 01:04:53,800
Speaker 1: since Gen Claude's death. As always, the work was self

1127
01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 1: financed through Christos sales of his drawings and models. The

1128
01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 1: final cost was about sixteen point five million dollars and

1129
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: compared to their past projects, getting government approval was easy,

1130
01:05:06,760 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: which makes sense because they've done so many projects at

1131
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:11,840
Speaker 1: this point. I'm sure the government was like, yea, yeah, yeah, great,

1132
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: sounds great. That's gonna so many people. Let's make a

1133
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 1: bunch of money off you. Here you go, and that's

1134
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: probably a really good thing because of course John Claude

1135
01:05:20,240 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: was the one who had handled all of those types

1136
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:25,240
Speaker 1: of challenges in the past. So it's nice that together

1137
01:05:25,320 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 1: they had got their career forward that you know, he

1138
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:29,160
Speaker 1: didn't need that as much. I think about that. What

1139
01:05:29,160 --> 01:05:30,800
Speaker 1: what a struggle that must have been for him to

1140
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: not just lose the person that he cared so much about,

1141
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:36,320
Speaker 1: that was like his literally his other half, but the

1142
01:05:36,360 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 1: person who handled, you know, a good chunk of the

1143
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:42,640
Speaker 1: difficult work of putting their projects together. And now he

1144
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: suddenly not only just kind of has to overcome his

1145
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: grief to get back to his work, but he also

1146
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:49,840
Speaker 1: has to find ways to compensate for what she was doing. Yeah,

1147
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:52,120
Speaker 1: that's so tough. I mean I think about that with

1148
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:54,640
Speaker 1: us sometimes. You think about that all the time. Yeah,

1149
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 1: what what would you do? Wow? Yeah, what would I do?

1150
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 1: I would fail? How would you continue the show? I

1151
01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:05,760
Speaker 1: don't know. Initially this project was going to be installed

1152
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 1: in April of but it was delayed until September due

1153
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: to kestrel falcons who used the arch as a nesting

1154
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 1: ground every spring. And you know, Christo, he really wanted

1155
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: his work to disrupt nature as little as possible. But sadly,

1156
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: on May thirty one, Cristo died of natural causes, and

1157
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 1: that's so heartbreaking to me because if they had gone

1158
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: with their original plan, he would have seen um. But

1159
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:36,400
Speaker 1: but he was trying to be nice to the birds,

1160
01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:39,880
Speaker 1: and that's why he missed it. And that's like heartbreaking

1161
01:06:39,880 --> 01:06:44,440
Speaker 1: and sweet and just Cristal all over, you know. Yeah.

1162
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:48,160
Speaker 1: But Christo and Gean Claude both always wanted their work

1163
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 1: to continue after their deaths, and Paris announced that the

1164
01:06:51,240 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: project would continue. Of course, it was delayed once again

1165
01:06:55,360 --> 01:07:00,400
Speaker 1: due to the pandemic, but in September of one Lac

1166
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: Detrion wrapped ne was completed and for two weeks the

1167
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:09,760
Speaker 1: arch was wrapped in two hundred and seventy thousand square

1168
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:13,479
Speaker 1: feet of blue and silver fabric with ten thousand feet

1169
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:17,320
Speaker 1: of red rope. There's something really poetic that neither of

1170
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: them got to see this original work that they had

1171
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:24,760
Speaker 1: conceived together in in person. They both died before it

1172
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 1: came out. Something very sad and and and kind of

1173
01:07:29,080 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 1: beautiful about that. I get that because it's the same

1174
01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: like ephemeral nature, right. That was the whole point of

1175
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:36,840
Speaker 1: the work, is that it's you get it while you

1176
01:07:36,880 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: get it, and they they was the same for them.

1177
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:42,600
Speaker 1: They got what they got while they got it, and

1178
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 1: things keep going and things disappear. And there's other projects

1179
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:51,960
Speaker 1: in the works um of theirs too. There's this one

1180
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 1: that they have come and called the Mastaba. They had

1181
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 1: one in London in like seen somewhere in there that

1182
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:02,880
Speaker 1: it's this big like um trapezoid made out of barrels

1183
01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: that was floating on the water and they're all like

1184
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 1: orange and purple and blue and red and it's really bright, colorful,

1185
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 1: crazy looking the thing. And it's based on the shape

1186
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: of an old Mesopotamian bench and they have plans to

1187
01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 1: do one in the United Arab Emirates and they had

1188
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 1: planned on this inn and Uh it's this proposed location

1189
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:28,040
Speaker 1: in the inland about a hundred and sixty kilometers from

1190
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,760
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi in the desert of Leewa. And this is

1191
01:08:31,800 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: just another project there's that they've always wanted to conceive

1192
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 1: and they wanted their art to continue after their death

1193
01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 1: and there's people just doing it. I think that's so cool.

1194
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:42,479
Speaker 1: So that that hasn't happened yet, but accord to their website,

1195
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:45,479
Speaker 1: it's in the works. So you may yet get to

1196
01:08:45,479 --> 01:08:49,000
Speaker 1: see a Christo and Jean Claude. You know, you can't

1197
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 1: get to the United airb memirates. Maybe there will be

1198
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:52,920
Speaker 1: more after I hope so, because I don't know if

1199
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:55,800
Speaker 1: we're going to get there. Yeah, it was actually the

1200
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:58,680
Speaker 1: art the art to Triomphe that made me look them

1201
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: up because I had a friend too was in Paris

1202
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:04,960
Speaker 1: for this rapping and he stayed there for the whole

1203
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:06,639
Speaker 1: two weeks it was up or however long I don't

1204
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:09,200
Speaker 1: remember how long it was that, but he was there

1205
01:09:09,240 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 1: the whole time and they went to see it every

1206
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:13,599
Speaker 1: day multiple times, you know, like, and he was just

1207
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:15,439
Speaker 1: like over the moon about it, and I just kept

1208
01:09:15,439 --> 01:09:17,800
Speaker 1: being like, what, but why, I mean, I think it's cool,

1209
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 1: Like I think it's I mean, it's a feat to

1210
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:23,120
Speaker 1: wrap a building. But I just he wasn't ever like

1211
01:09:23,200 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 1: getting artistic with it. He was just like, it's amazing,

1212
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. He wasn't really staying why

1213
01:09:27,280 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: he was finding it so incredible. So I was like, well,

1214
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: let me just look it up. And yeah again, I

1215
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:34,400
Speaker 1: was just like, now I get it, and I kind

1216
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 1: of love it. It's the coolest thing. And of course,

1217
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:45,759
Speaker 1: of course, articles across the art world excluded gen Claude

1218
01:09:45,920 --> 01:09:50,040
Speaker 1: from their headlines and descriptions of the Arc de trio wrapped,

1219
01:09:50,760 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 1: including The Wall Street Journal and The l A Times.

1220
01:09:54,240 --> 01:09:57,599
Speaker 1: Critic Hall Rockefeller writes that even the New York Times

1221
01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 1: obituaries of both artists tend to cats her in the

1222
01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:03,479
Speaker 1: role of his assistant, and they should definitely know better

1223
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 1: because Christo name checked them a specifically. Right, they referred

1224
01:10:07,640 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: to the Gates in Cristo's obituary as his project, while

1225
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:13,680
Speaker 1: in her obituary they specified that the work was a

1226
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:18,040
Speaker 1: joint spousal effort, labeling their work as quote the art

1227
01:10:18,120 --> 01:10:21,599
Speaker 1: of her and her husband. So it's like Crystal can

1228
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:24,760
Speaker 1: stand alone, but not Sean Claude. You can't just say

1229
01:10:24,800 --> 01:10:27,559
Speaker 1: that was her her work, that happened on the coasts

1230
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:32,559
Speaker 1: of Miami. Violands, that was Crystal. That was actually her husband,

1231
01:10:33,120 --> 01:10:35,479
Speaker 1: and she brought him a nice tall glass of lemonade,

1232
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:37,479
Speaker 1: right or that? Like when they're talking about her, they

1233
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:39,840
Speaker 1: always remember to mention both of them, But when they're

1234
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:43,759
Speaker 1: talking about him, she's conveniently kind of treated like not important,

1235
01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 1: and she was there too, so annoying. Rockefeller writes that

1236
01:10:49,600 --> 01:10:54,800
Speaker 1: quote artists wives have acted as studio assistants, advocates, babysitters,

1237
01:10:54,880 --> 01:10:58,240
Speaker 1: and breadwinners. We may never know the full scope of

1238
01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:00,720
Speaker 1: the impact they have made on the story of art.

1239
01:11:01,320 --> 01:11:03,760
Speaker 1: But in the case of Jean Claude, we do know

1240
01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:06,680
Speaker 1: her impact is evident in the covering of one of

1241
01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:11,639
Speaker 1: Paris's most recognizable monuments. It's ironic, however, that despite how

1242
01:11:11,720 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 1: large this work looms, she has been diminished. And that's

1243
01:11:16,320 --> 01:11:19,679
Speaker 1: definitely something I think that we've not discovered but certainly

1244
01:11:19,680 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: come up against a lot. And our research is that

1245
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 1: there's so many great men in history with with a

1246
01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:27,960
Speaker 1: lot of accomplishments, and you look at them and you go,

1247
01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:30,080
Speaker 1: but could they have done any of this if not

1248
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:32,960
Speaker 1: for their wife, managing their home and raising their children

1249
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:35,720
Speaker 1: and all the other things that they get supported by

1250
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:40,559
Speaker 1: that goes completely un unheralded, often giving up what they

1251
01:11:40,560 --> 01:11:44,680
Speaker 1: want to do in favor of their stream or whatever. Yeah,

1252
01:11:44,760 --> 01:11:48,360
Speaker 1: And at other times where like I think of Winston

1253
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:51,679
Speaker 1: and Clementine Churchill, where in fact she was not only

1254
01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:55,439
Speaker 1: doing those jobs so that he could do his, but

1255
01:11:55,520 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 1: she was actually doing part of his job too, and

1256
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:01,240
Speaker 1: we would never have known that. So they're like Hall

1257
01:12:01,320 --> 01:12:05,080
Speaker 1: Rockefeller is basically saying, like, there's these artists vives back

1258
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:08,120
Speaker 1: there that might have been way more engaged in the

1259
01:12:08,200 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 1: actual artwork, and we just will never know, We'll never

1260
01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:14,559
Speaker 1: hear about it because, like you said, as many times

1261
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:18,000
Speaker 1: as we've researched him, and like, here's the entire biographical

1262
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:21,000
Speaker 1: history of this dude. We don't know much about his wife,

1263
01:12:21,040 --> 01:12:23,360
Speaker 1: but they met forty years later, and here's what happened

1264
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:28,639
Speaker 1: after that. It's like two children. But it's so interesting

1265
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:31,000
Speaker 1: to see their lives together play out. I feel like

1266
01:12:31,000 --> 01:12:34,200
Speaker 1: it's like a movie almost because it's weird how it

1267
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 1: all ties together so neatly and almost like wrap it

1268
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:39,360
Speaker 1: up with a little bow at the end, you know,

1269
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:43,400
Speaker 1: the like the fabric for example, that gotten his father

1270
01:12:43,439 --> 01:12:47,280
Speaker 1: in trouble right, We mentioned that that what an interesting

1271
01:12:47,439 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 1: role fabric has played in his life from beginning to end. Uh.

1272
01:12:52,680 --> 01:12:55,200
Speaker 1: How about the haystacks, obviously we talked about those being

1273
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:58,720
Speaker 1: an influence where he's seeing these massive public projects of

1274
01:12:58,760 --> 01:13:01,080
Speaker 1: people all coming out with these arps and covering shipped

1275
01:13:01,120 --> 01:13:04,559
Speaker 1: up and now doesn't it look different? Like that's that

1276
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: was a huge inspiration for him. Or the struggles with

1277
01:13:08,080 --> 01:13:11,439
Speaker 1: language and how he couldn't express himself, or the fact

1278
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:15,240
Speaker 1: that they had identical birthdays and met you know, and

1279
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:17,599
Speaker 1: basically we're in two separate couples. But then they just

1280
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:22,679
Speaker 1: had to get together. It almost feels like meticulously planned out,

1281
01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:27,040
Speaker 1: like this series of events that led them to show

1282
01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: the world like just how silly and ridiculous are rules

1283
01:13:30,479 --> 01:13:34,000
Speaker 1: and standards and our our notions of control are right,

1284
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:36,240
Speaker 1: like how much control we need to have everything, and

1285
01:13:36,240 --> 01:13:38,240
Speaker 1: how how many rules we need to have, and how

1286
01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:40,960
Speaker 1: everything has to have a reason behind it. And they

1287
01:13:41,040 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 1: just kind of like, we're like, are you kidding me?

1288
01:13:43,479 --> 01:13:45,640
Speaker 1: Just wrap that building in pink plastic and call it

1289
01:13:45,680 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 1: a day. We need to have a good time, not

1290
01:13:49,280 --> 01:13:53,439
Speaker 1: a long time like that, Like we forget we're living

1291
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 1: in this giant toy box, right, and that most of us,

1292
01:13:57,400 --> 01:14:01,000
Speaker 1: most people, all we want is fun and way right.

1293
01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: And if you found something and if you found someone

1294
01:14:04,720 --> 01:14:06,639
Speaker 1: that you can do that thing with that, no matter

1295
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:10,080
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it is, then do it, do it in big,

1296
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:13,800
Speaker 1: do it insane, do the most ridiculous version of that

1297
01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:18,280
Speaker 1: that you can. And that's awesome. Yeah. Even her background

1298
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:22,160
Speaker 1: in philosophy, I feel like plays in because surely when

1299
01:14:22,200 --> 01:14:25,000
Speaker 1: he started talking about what he was doing with his art,

1300
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:28,640
Speaker 1: she was she had so much language and already the

1301
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:32,000
Speaker 1: knowledge about how to think about things deeply and talk

1302
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:34,639
Speaker 1: about things in different ways and stuff like that, and

1303
01:14:35,360 --> 01:14:37,760
Speaker 1: just sort of I'm sure that's part of what made

1304
01:14:37,760 --> 01:14:40,840
Speaker 1: her inspired and thinking of concepts and stuff, as well

1305
01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:44,320
Speaker 1: as being like, oh, I you know, just particularly since

1306
01:14:44,320 --> 01:14:47,439
Speaker 1: she wasn't an artist herself before they met um and

1307
01:14:47,520 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 1: maybe had never thought of becoming an artist, but she

1308
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:55,240
Speaker 1: saw this great way of expressing some really deep philosophical

1309
01:14:55,400 --> 01:15:01,600
Speaker 1: ideas in in a very non philosophical way. Yeah, I

1310
01:15:01,600 --> 01:15:05,720
Speaker 1: guess yeah, without meaning these like they're they're working in

1311
01:15:05,760 --> 01:15:09,799
Speaker 1: a very pretentious thing, without doing it pretentiously, really making

1312
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:13,600
Speaker 1: it for the people in a way, which is so fascinating.

1313
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:16,680
Speaker 1: And she had that bright red hair. Oh there's this

1314
01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:18,920
Speaker 1: great pictures of the two of them together. I mean,

1315
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:21,360
Speaker 1: he's got like a doc brown look right, he's got

1316
01:15:21,360 --> 01:15:25,080
Speaker 1: this wild gray hair. He's tall, skinny guy, and she's

1317
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:27,719
Speaker 1: just got this fiery red hair and bright red lipstick.

1318
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:29,639
Speaker 1: And they look crazy. They look like so much fun.

1319
01:15:30,000 --> 01:15:32,040
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's why they called her vulgar, because

1320
01:15:32,040 --> 01:15:35,040
Speaker 1: I was like, what where's this coming. Maybe he was

1321
01:15:35,080 --> 01:15:37,519
Speaker 1: just like she's painted up, like I don't know. She

1322
01:15:37,600 --> 01:15:40,519
Speaker 1: also had that kind of French bluntness. I think in

1323
01:15:40,520 --> 01:15:43,439
Speaker 1: interviews sometimes like she kind of just like said whatever

1324
01:15:43,479 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 1: she wanted to say. Um, so that might have been

1325
01:15:46,160 --> 01:15:48,479
Speaker 1: part of what they found vulgar too, a woman saying

1326
01:15:48,520 --> 01:15:53,760
Speaker 1: what she wants to say. I don't think I love

1327
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: these guys so much. I'm so glad that we looked

1328
01:15:55,840 --> 01:15:59,800
Speaker 1: into them, because it's such a such a different look

1329
01:15:59,800 --> 01:16:04,120
Speaker 1: at art and interpretation and meaning and all that. It's

1330
01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:07,040
Speaker 1: it's just kind of let go of a lot of

1331
01:16:07,040 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 1: these notions you have and these pretensions you have about

1332
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:12,960
Speaker 1: what art should be. And again, like you and I

1333
01:16:13,080 --> 01:16:15,760
Speaker 1: both have seen Christo and Sean Claude works in the

1334
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:20,000
Speaker 1: past and said, yeah, okay, all right, and then you

1335
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:22,479
Speaker 1: just you learn a little bit you're like, oh, damn,

1336
01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:25,400
Speaker 1: actually that's pretty neat R. And that's all it needs

1337
01:16:25,400 --> 01:16:27,800
Speaker 1: to be is pretty neat. That's it. Yeah, it doesn't

1338
01:16:27,800 --> 01:16:29,400
Speaker 1: have to be anything more than that. I mean, there's

1339
01:16:29,439 --> 01:16:32,080
Speaker 1: something all inspiring about the scale, oh my god, yes,

1340
01:16:32,120 --> 01:16:33,880
Speaker 1: and the amount of money and the amount of people

1341
01:16:34,680 --> 01:16:37,800
Speaker 1: and so on. But but yeah, it's basically just I

1342
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:41,120
Speaker 1: just thought would be cool. Yeah, why not the gates?

1343
01:16:41,400 --> 01:16:45,639
Speaker 1: Um you can apparently, during the production of the gates.

1344
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:49,000
Speaker 1: You could buy little squares of the saffron fabric that

1345
01:16:49,040 --> 01:16:52,960
Speaker 1: they used, um, and I guess those are still circulating

1346
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:55,799
Speaker 1: around on eBay, apparently getting for like ten bucks or something.

1347
01:16:55,880 --> 01:17:00,600
Speaker 1: So that's yeah. It actually reminds me of one of

1348
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:02,840
Speaker 1: my favorite children's books. I've talked about it before. The

1349
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 1: Phantom told Booth, Yes, there's a great part where he

1350
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: has to have a reason to go to Dictionopolis. Um,

1351
01:17:12,280 --> 01:17:13,960
Speaker 1: he has to have a reason to get in there,

1352
01:17:13,960 --> 01:17:16,479
Speaker 1: like it's market day, you have to have a reason. Like, well,

1353
01:17:16,520 --> 01:17:19,400
Speaker 1: I don't have a reason. And so the guards like, oh, well,

1354
01:17:19,439 --> 01:17:20,840
Speaker 1: let me see if I have an old one lying

1355
01:17:20,840 --> 01:17:22,559
Speaker 1: around here, and he like goes into a chest and

1356
01:17:22,560 --> 01:17:24,600
Speaker 1: he's pulling out all these like things and like this

1357
01:17:24,640 --> 01:17:27,120
Speaker 1: doesn't work. This doesn't work. Oh, this one's great, And

1358
01:17:27,160 --> 01:17:31,720
Speaker 1: it's just a big metal that says why not. And

1359
01:17:31,800 --> 01:17:33,320
Speaker 1: Mile was like, all right, I don't take it. And

1360
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:35,080
Speaker 1: I just loved that as a kid, because I was like,

1361
01:17:35,120 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: what a good reason for anything? Why do you need

1362
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:40,800
Speaker 1: a reason? I love those like Phantom told Booth was

1363
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:42,839
Speaker 1: back in that where everybody was just tripping on acid

1364
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:46,360
Speaker 1: back then, and like literalizing everything in like the most

1365
01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:49,360
Speaker 1: silly way possible. I'm thinking of like um, the Yellow

1366
01:17:49,360 --> 01:17:53,479
Speaker 1: Submarine movie. He's like, let's go to hold put that

1367
01:17:53,479 --> 01:17:57,639
Speaker 1: little hole in. Yeah, it's it's good stuff. But yeah, Krystine,

1368
01:17:57,640 --> 01:18:01,799
Speaker 1: Shrunk Claude are so interesting to me. They're just such bright, lovely,

1369
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:04,400
Speaker 1: wonderful people. I would love to have known them. And

1370
01:18:04,439 --> 01:18:07,000
Speaker 1: it just seemed like a really good time to um

1371
01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:11,679
Speaker 1: and all they all they ever wanted was fun, joy,

1372
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 1: you know, silliness. Yeah, who doesn't want that? I love that.

1373
01:18:15,280 --> 01:18:18,200
Speaker 1: I hope. I hope everyone, including myself, can take some

1374
01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:22,000
Speaker 1: of that energy away from this episode absolutely just be like,

1375
01:18:22,160 --> 01:18:24,200
Speaker 1: how can I be making more fun and joy in

1376
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:27,040
Speaker 1: my life? What am I not doing that I'm not

1377
01:18:27,120 --> 01:18:29,479
Speaker 1: doing because I haven't thought of a good enough reason

1378
01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:32,680
Speaker 1: yet to not do it, but I still really want to.

1379
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:35,519
Speaker 1: Is that not enough of a reason. Yes, it is,

1380
01:18:35,640 --> 01:18:38,520
Speaker 1: unless it's like killing someone, in which case don't write that. Obviously.

1381
01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:42,479
Speaker 1: The line here is if you're hurting other people and

1382
01:18:42,760 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: don't do it, I know their their whole philosophers do

1383
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:49,719
Speaker 1: no harm d a moment. And also people, yes, protect

1384
01:18:49,840 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 1: kestrel falcons. Yeah yeah, but they're awesome. I hope I

1385
01:18:54,000 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: hope you did get some If you're not already someone

1386
01:18:57,479 --> 01:19:01,600
Speaker 1: who appreciates abstract art like this, I hope that you

1387
01:19:01,720 --> 01:19:06,360
Speaker 1: took something a new perspective from it. If you're uh

1388
01:19:06,640 --> 01:19:09,719
Speaker 1: super pretentious artist who thinks you're too good for Christo

1389
01:19:09,760 --> 01:19:11,679
Speaker 1: and Gean Claude, I'll help you out. You can open

1390
01:19:11,720 --> 01:19:14,080
Speaker 1: your heart a little bit um and show us your work.

1391
01:19:14,120 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 1: It sounds cool and unless I wouldn't get it, all right,

1392
01:19:20,200 --> 01:19:21,960
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, let us know what you saw it.

1393
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:24,960
Speaker 1: Of course, reach out our email address Romance and I

1394
01:19:25,000 --> 01:19:27,599
Speaker 1: heart media dot com right or around social media Twitter

1395
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:30,479
Speaker 1: and Instagram. I'm at Dynamite Boom and I'm at oh great,

1396
01:19:30,479 --> 01:19:33,280
Speaker 1: it's Eli. The show is at ridic Romance. That's right,

1397
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:36,880
Speaker 1: and uh, stay tuned for more episodes. Uh, we can't

1398
01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 1: wait to bring you some more. Don't forget to check

1399
01:19:38,479 --> 01:19:40,640
Speaker 1: out our episode of Ridiculous History where we gets to

1400
01:19:40,680 --> 01:19:43,760
Speaker 1: heart with Ben and Knowl and Ridiculous History also just

1401
01:19:43,800 --> 01:19:46,320
Speaker 1: a great show to listen to. And of course Ridiculous

1402
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:48,800
Speaker 1: Crime came out this week, so be sure to be

1403
01:19:49,360 --> 01:19:53,400
Speaker 1: following along with them as well. Definitely, Otherwise, I think

1404
01:19:54,680 --> 01:19:59,080
Speaker 1: that's a wrap. Oh very good. That's a wrap and

1405
01:19:59,200 --> 01:20:02,200
Speaker 1: Sean Claude. I'm here all week, even if you wish

1406
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 1: I would leave. All right, Thanks all, we'll see you

1407
01:20:06,160 --> 01:20:09,680
Speaker 1: next time. Bye, So long friends, it's time to go.

1408
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:14,439
Speaker 1: Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friend's neighbor's

1409
01:20:14,479 --> 01:20:17,960
Speaker 1: uncle sandance to listen to a show ridiculous roll dance