Christo’s Plan to Envelope Paris’s Arc de Triomphe Is Set for September
Delayed because of Covid, the project’s future has been uncertain.
A 2019 collage by Christo, “L'Arc de Triumph, Wrapped (Project for Paris) Place de l'Etoile, Charles de Gaulle.”
Source: André Grossmann/2020 Estate of Christo V. Javacheff
The late artist Christo, who died last year at the age of 84, had intended to wrap Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in 25,000 square meters of fabric in September 2020.
Plans for the temporary artwork, officially titled L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, “were very advanced” before they were postponed as a result of the pandemic, says Vladimir Yavachev. He is the artist’s nephew and the project director for the Arc de Triomphe installation. “We were already sewing the fabric. Christo always wanted to have lots of folds, so we had to double the amount of fabric necessary to cover the arc.”