site.btaNational Gallery Director Anelia Nikolaeva Honours Christo and Jeanne-Claude Anniversaries in Berlin

National Gallery Director Anelia Nikolaeva said on Monday that the exhibition Wrapped Reichstag has become, and continues to be, a truly significant event for Sofia’s art scene and is still attracting large audiences.

Nikolaeva was a special guest at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin, where the 90th anniversaries of the births of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and the 30th anniversary of the wrapping of the Reichstag were marked with the presentation of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971–1995) and the German-language edition of LIK magazine Christo and Jeanne-Claude at 90 in Eternity, a joint initiative of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and the National Gallery.

Special guests at the event also included Culture Minister Marian Bachev and Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev. Among those present was Bulgarian Ambassador to Germany Grigor Porozhanov. Metropolitan Anthony of Western and Central Europe and Father Yuliyan Angelov, chair of the Orthodox church St Tsar Boris the Baptizer in Berlin, were also there, as was German-Bulgarian Forum Chair Volker Berresheim.

More than one hundred guests, mostly Germans as well as members of the Bulgarian community in Berlin, attended the event at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, including Union of Composers Chair Tsenko Minkin, choreographer Eleonora Aleksandrova, jazz musician Vladimir Karparov, artists Vesela Grigorieva and Ivan Kostolov, writer Veso Portarski, Deutsche Welle journalist Marinela Lipcheva and others.

“I inherited the project that made the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibition at the National Gallery possible. The idea began with the purchase of a work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude for the National Gallery’s collection a year ago,” Nikolaeva said. She added that the idea dated back to the tenure of the previous National Gallery Director, Iaroslava Bubnova. In her words, the people responsible for making the exhibition happen today are its curator, Gergana Mudova, and the representative and projects director of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, Christo Javacheff’s nephew Vladimir Yavashev.

“The idea of mounting an exhibition specifically about the Reichstag was born because the work is part of the numerous – we might even say thousands of – drawing-projects that Christo produced for the wrapping of the Reichstag. The story of this exhibition was built precisely around this new acquisition of the National Gallery, which presents, through documentation and original works, the path of this 24-year idea,” the National Gallery Director said. Nikolaeva added that the exhibition also shows video footage of the debates that took place in the Bundestag before permission was granted for the wrapping.

“Alongside this acquisition, which is very important for us, we are showing nine more original works – essentially drawings and collages rather than just posters, which are of exceptional significance to us. This is, in fact, the first exhibition of its kind in Bulgaria to present original works by Christo,” Nikolaeva stressed. She added that the National Gallery also holds works from the time when Christo Javacheff was a student. “We can show Hristo before he became Christo,” she said.

Nikolaeva said that these nine works present the main projects on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s path to the wrapping of the Reichstag: The Gates, Central Park, New York City; The Umbrellas, Japan–USA; The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris; Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Florida; Wrapped Walk Ways, Kansas City, Missouri; Running Fence, California; Oceanfront, Newport, Rhode Island; Wrapped Roman Wall, Rome, Italy; and Valley Curtain, Colorado.

“I do not know what Christo would think if he could see how actively we Bulgarians now speak about his art and about the way in which we, people today, recognize ourselves through his art,” Nikolaeva said. In her view, it is important to remember what he showed was possible – to believe in the total freedom of the creative spirit.

“The exhibition’s invaluable partners were the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, the Goethe-Institut, the French Institute in Bulgaria and BTA, to whom we are deeply grateful,” Nikolaeva said.

As BTA reported, the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971–1995) opened on 4 November at the “Kvadrat 500” Gallery in Sofia.

Since January 2024 LIK magazine has been freely accessible. All issues including the German-language issue entitled Christo und Jeanne-Claude mit 90 Jahren in der Ewigkeit can be downloaded from BTA's website.