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Kunsttage Basel 2023
Christo: Selected Works
August 25–27, 2023
Basel
kunsttagebasel.ch
Kunsttage Basel is a citywide program of art events at more than sixty museums, galleries, and other spaces. The exhibition Christo: Selected Works, featuring sculptures and works on paper by the artist, will be on view at Gagosian, Basel, with extended hours throughout the weekend. The presentation marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s last project in the city in 1998, when they wrapped 178 trees around the Fondation Beyeler in 55,000 square meters of woven polyester fabric.
Friday, August 25, 12–8pm
Saturday, August 26, 10am–6pm
Sunday, August 27, 10am–6pm
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Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Trees, Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park, Riehen, Switzerland, 1997–98 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: Wolfgang Volz
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Art Basel Unlimited 2024
Christo
June 10–16, 2024
Messe Basel, Hall 1, U69
www.artbasel.com
Art Basel Unlimited features Christo’s sculpture Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (2014). Launched in 2000, Unlimited is an exhibition platform for large-scale projects that transcend the limits of the standard booth.
For his earlier temporary sculpture Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) (1963), Christo employed a sage-green 1961 Beetle that was lent to the artist and his wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude by art director Claus Harden. He swathed the vehicle’s body in tarpaulin and rope, playfully intensifying the object’s mystique and invoking a new understanding of its form (Christo admired the famous “Bug” model for its rounded design as well as for its countercultural associations). Though by 2014 Christo was wrapping entire buildings, nostalgia stirred him to revisit the work by purchasing the exact same model and enlisting his nephew Vladimir Yavachev to help him wrap it. The result is Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, which he dated 1963–2014 to express the project’s extended incubation.
Christo, Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 1963–2014 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: Wolfgang Volz
Performance
Lucinda Chua
On Christo
Saturday, October 7, 2023, 3:30pm and 5:30pm
Gagosian Open, 4 Princelet Street, London
Join Gagosian for a performance by Lucinda Chua inside Christo: Early Works, the inaugural exhibition, curated by Elena Geuna, in the Gagosian Open series of off-site projects. The multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer will perform two improvised pieces in response to Christo’s early works and the unique architecture of 4 Princelet Street in the Spitalfields area of London. Born in London, Chua has English, Malaysian, and ancestral Chinese roots, deep connections that are excavated in her recent album, YIAN (2023), which, as Pitchfork writes, “gathers the threads that link home, history, and their relationship to the body.” Primarily using her voice, a cello, and an array of effects units, Chua will infuse the historic building with her distinctive sound blending intimacy, atmosphere, and haunting enchantment. No advance registration is required, but space is limited and will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis.
Lucinda Chua. Photo: Yukitaka Amemiya
Honor
Wall of Oil Barrels—The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961–62
Sixty-Year Anniversary Celebration
Monday, June 27, 2022, 9pm
rue Visconti, Paris
On the evening of June 27, 1962, Christo and Jeanne-Claude installed Wall of Oil Barrels—The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961–62, closing the historic rue Visconti with eighty-nine barrels. The 4.2-meter-high barricade blocked one of narrowest streets in Paris for eight hours, obstructing most of the traffic through the Left Bank. To celebrate the sixty-year anniversary of the work, the city of Paris is closing the street and visitors on-site will be able to activate an augmented-reality animation of the barrels. The event is free and open to the public.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wall of Oil Barrels—The Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961–62 (1961–62), Paris, June 27, 1962. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: Jean-Dominique Lajoux
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