© 1995 Christo & Prestel Verlag

Interview with Christo

Interviewer: Masahiko Yanagi

Page 2 of 12

With friendly permission by Prestel Verlag

Drawing 1982
Foto: Wolfgang Volz
Collection Jeanne-Claude Christo, New York

Yanagi:

When you started the Pont Neuf project, did you ever expect that it would take a decade to realize ? In general, how sure are you of realizing a project ?

I never know in advance, but I do always propose work that has a chance to be realized. I do not propose utopian projects of which I am sure I will never get permission or are physically impossible.
This is why the projects may look very difficult, sometimes even absurd, but they are not really. They are feasible, but stand at the limit between possible and impossible. We expect to encounter fearful problems and the chance that we will fail. All that gives excitement and energy to the project because of the doubts. It is really like an expedition, going through the enormous amount of references and new elements.

Each project has its own history, which is impossible to know in advance. The same thing with the Wrapped Reichstag project. During the fourteen year history of this project, its many dimensions and levels have been revealed. This is why I don't like to accept only one interpretation. When we start a project some wise people try to teach me their own interpretation. But these various reasons are only little facets of the magnitude of the site, the space, the street, the building's meaning. In a way, now is probably the most refreshing time of the new project for Japan and Western U.S.A. [The Umbrellas] because this is the most fresh and sincere period when everybody knows better than everybody else. The project is just a year old now, and after many years it will be curious to see all this in retrospect. Certainly I try to listen to everybody's advice to avoid unnecessary aggravation, frustration and problems; unfortunately we never discover right away the roads and the manner in which we can get the permits. Probably the most important thing when we start a project is to keep the naive, almost childlike desire to do the object, and not to be changed at any moment or blocked by mature and serious thinking because that will only damage the enthusiasm and the vision of the work. This is why, if you ask me whether we would really do the project even foreseeing all the difficulties... I could not answer you

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© 1995 Christo & Prestel Verlag