Open-air exhibitions in Sofia -- the City Garden and Crystal Garden -- with posters by Christo and Jeanne-Claude from the Museum Collection of the National Academy of Art
2021.09.08
From 2 to 15 September and from 7 to 24 September 2021, the National Academy of Art and Sofia City Art Gallery jointly present two open-air exhibitions with works from the Museum Collection of the National Academy of Art, which will be presented in the Open-air Galleries at two central locations in Sofia -- the City Garden and Crystal Garden.
The original photographs are part of the Museum Collection of the National Academy of Art. In 2005, on the occasion of their seventieth birthday, Christo and Jeanne-Claude donated one hundred and twenty-two hand-signed prints of their posters and drawings to the Academy. The same year, sixty of the prints were presented in an exhibition at Academia Gallery and were bought out by the Belgian art collector and patron Hugo Voeten. Christo and Jeanne-Claude wanted the sale money to be invested in the
construction of the new building for the Academy. With this act, the two artists were the first private donors in the fund-raising campaign for constructing a new wing of the building of the Bulgarian higher education institution of arts. The second series of hand-signed prints of drawings, collages and photographs became part of the Academy's museum collection.
The open-air exhibitions in the urban space represent two separate stories about the artistic work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The exposition in the City Garden traces chronologically Christo's growth as a solo artist by presenting photographs of his first experiments in the field of , as well as his first joint projects with Jeanne-Claude such as "Wrapped Beach", "Valley Curtain", "Wrapped Roman Wall”, “The Wrapped Alleys”, “Surrounded Islands”, “The Wrapped Bridge" and “The Umbrellas”. The exhibition in Crystal Garden presents photographs of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's later projects, such as "Wrapped Reichstag", "Wrapped Trees", "The Wall - 13,000 Oil Barrels" and "The Gates".
The exhibitions are part of the Sofia Municipality project "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Encounters without Parting".
Find out more about the project in the file attached below: