In/Out Studio

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's projects are remembered as public spectacles, but this book is about the decades of labor behind them: the studio, the drawings sold to fund the work, and the crews on the ground.

Edited with text by Matthias Koddenberg and published by D.A.P. with Verlag Kettler, the 320-page volume assembles more than 250 largely unpublished photographs, many of them from the artists' private archives, alongside reproductions of drawings, collages and objects. Every major project is documented: Wrapped Coast (1968–69), Valley Curtain (1970–72), Running Fence (1972–76), Surrounded Islands (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped (1975–85), The Umbrellas (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag (1971–95) and The Gates (1979–2005), together with early drawings from Christo's Bulgarian years, temporary sculptures, and works since lost or unknown. Photographs come from Wolfgang Volz, Ugo Mulas and others who followed the projects over decades.

Christo Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009) were born on the same day and worked jointly from 1961, financing everything themselves through the sale of preparatory studies. A revised edition of this book appeared in 2021, ahead of the posthumous wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe.