site.btaExhibition Dedicated to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Wrapped Reichstag Unveiled in Sofia
An exhibition entitled "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-1995" was unveiled in Sofia's Kvadrat 500 Gallery on Tuesday. Anelia Nikolaeva, the director of the National Art Gallery, noted that Christo used to say that the Wrapped Reichstag project was a corridor connecting the past with the future.
In her key remarks, Vice President Iliana Iotova said: "I am sure that today, just as they used to wrap waterfalls, walls, valleys, built incredible umbrellas, and showed us their interpretation of history, Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude are somewhere high in the sky wrapping the stars."
Vladimir Yavachev, Christo's nephew, shared: "I find some ironic comfort in the fact that during Bulgaria's most totalitarian Stalinist era—the 1950s—Christo was just meters away from here, at the Academy. And now, with the Reichstag, the greatest symbol of unity and freedom in the last 30-40 years, he is in the National Gallery. This is very important to me, and it would have been very important to him, because Christo devoted his entire life to this freedom."
The French Ambassador to Bulgaria, Marie Dumoulin, said that Christo transformed obstacles into freedom.
Kirsten Hackenbroch, Director of the Goethe-Institut in Sofia, said that what Christo and Jeanne-Claude achieved with the wrapping of the Reichstag was not just a visual spectacle. It was an act of artistic and political imagination. They transformed a building steeped in history—contested, divided, and ultimately united—into a canvas of freedom.
Among those present at the opening of the exhibition BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, who presented Vladimir Yavachev with a copy of LIK magazine dedicated to Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
The exhibition features collages, photographs, video footage, and archival documents tracing ten projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
/RY/
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