The Christo Interviews

A book that brings together a series of conversations between the artist, who is best known for the large-scale, site-specific environmental installations and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the pre-eminent commentator on and curator of contemporary art

The Christo Interviews brings together a series of conversations between the artist, who is best known for the large-scale, site-specific environmental installations he created in collaboration with artistic partner and wife, Jeanne-Claude, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the pre-eminent commentator on and curator of contemporary art. 

Taking place between December 2012 and May 2020, the interviews provide insight into the individual minds of two of the art world’s most esteemed figures, while also tracking the unfolding of their entire working relationship. Hans Ulrich describes these as ‘werksttat interviews’, meaning ‘a workshop or laboratory of words’ and taken together, they also reveal the progress of The London Mastaba, Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park (2016-18), Christo’s first major public outdoor work in the UK, which coincided with an exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries outlining Christo and Jeanne Claude’s 60-year history of working with oil barrels. Fully illustrated with images of finished works, drawings and documentary photographs from throughout Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s long and successful career, this hardback reading book features previously unpublished material and the final conversation in the book was Christo’s last ever interview, recorded shortly before his passing. 

Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.

• Author: Hans Ulrich Obrist
• Hardcover: 96 pages | 79 illustrations
• 216 published: September 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9781912122813
• Product Dimensions: 26.1 x 22.4 cm