The Arc de Triomphe will be wrapped in silver and blue fabric for the posthumous work of Christo

The Arc de Triomphe has seen parades, demonstrations and tourists in profusion, but never before has the Paris war memorial been wrapped in a recyclable silver and blue polypropylene fabric. It’s set to happen next month in a posthumous art installation designed by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

“Christo has packed museums, parliaments like in Germany, but a monument like this? Not really. This is the first time. It is the first monument of this importance and of this scale that he realizes”, said Vladimir Yavachev, the nephew of the late collaborating couple. , told The Associated Press.

Preparations have already started on the Napoleonic-era arch, where workers cover statues to protect them from wrapping.

The idea for “L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped” was born in 1961, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude were living in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and despite Christo’s passing in May 2020, the project continued.

“He wanted to finish this project. He made us promise that we will do it,” Yavachev told The Associated Press.

This was to be done last fall, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed installation.

The 14 million euros ($ 16.4 million) project is self-funded through the sale of preparatory studies, drawings, scale models and other work by Christo, Yavachev said.

Visitors at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe during the installation, scheduled from September 18 to October 3, will be able to touch the canvas, and those who climb to the top will walk on it when they reach the roof terrace, as planned by the artists.

Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, born in Morocco exactly the same day as him, in Paris in 1958.

The artists were known for their elaborate and temporary creations that involved covering familiar public places with fabric, such as the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, and creating giant site-specific installations, such as a series of 7,503 doors in Central Park in New York. and the 24.5 mile Running Fence in California.

Yavachev plans to complete another of his uncle and aunt’s unfinished projects: a 150-meter-high (492ft) pyramid-shaped mastaba in Abu Dhabi.

“We have the plans, we just have to do it,” he said.