Description:

Christo & Jeanne-Claude Signed "Valley Curtain" Postcard

Color postcard depicting a panoramic view of Christo & Jeanne-Claude's "Curtain Valley" installation, ca. 1970-1972, signed by Christo as "Christo et Jeanne-Claude" along the Colorado sky at top. Blank verso except for artwork and photo credits in the upper left corner. In near fine condition. 5.875" x 4".

Christo & Jeanne-Claude, as they became known, were famous for erecting temporary multi-media art installations in public spaces, often on a monumental scale. Using unusual materials--such as recycled oil barrels, vibrantly colored nylon fabric, or floating pontoons--their "canvas" included but was not limited to parks, bridges, buildings, coastlines, islands, and mountainsides. While some detected explicit political messages in their artwork, Christo & Jeanne-Claude have always maintained that they created art for art's sake. The pair wanted to produce a pure aesthetic impact, encouraging viewers to regard ordinary things in a new way. Christo & Jeanne-Claude's Valley Curtain project entailed suspending over 200,000 square feet of orange nylon fabric from steel cables moored by concrete pylons. The curtain was unfurled between ridges of the Grand Hogback Mountain Range at Rifle Gap, Colorado, overlooking Highway 325. The project took 28 months to complete, and lasted as many hours; gale force winds necessitated the onset of its deinstallation on August 11, 1972, the day following its erection. The Valley Curtain project was financed entirely by the advanced sale of the pair's preparatory drawings and prints.

Bulgarian artist Christo Javacheff (1935-2020) and Moroccan-born French artist Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935-2009) met in Paris in the late 1950s. The newlyweds soon became artistic collaborators. They produced some memorable installations over their 50-year-long working relationship. Such projects included wrapping the Pont Neuf Bridge in Paris (1984-1985), and erecting 7,500+ 5-meter-high gates, crowned by orange fabric panels, along walkways in Central Park, New York City (1979-2005).

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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June 24, 2020 10:30 AM EDT
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