BTA :: Christo's Art Is One Big Lesson in Freedom

Christo's Art Is One Big Lesson in Freedom - LIK Editor-in-Chief

LIK Editor-in-Chief Georgi Lozanov speaks by video conference at a launch of the June issue of LIK, Sofia, June 25, 2025 (BTA Photo/Blagoy Kirilov)

Sofia,

25.06.2025 19:12

(BTA)

“The entire art of Christo is one big lesson in freedom. I think we all need that, and I’m glad we can offer the pages of LIK magazine to reach as wide an audience as possible,” said LIK’s Editor-in-Chief, Georgi Lozanov, here Wednesday. He was speaking during a presentation of LIK’s June issue, dedicated to the pioneering artist Christo (1935–2020) and his wife Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009).

The event is taking place concurrently at the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Centre in Gabrovo, North Central Bulgaria and BTA’s MaxiM Hall in Sofia as well as the BTA national press clubs across Bulgaria and abroad.

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude managed to turn their love and iconic partnership into a creative method. They succeeded in challenging state political institutions to act as cultural institutions, allowing the Reichstag to be wrapped and the Paris City Hall to permit wrapping Pont Neuf. When you transform political institutions - even briefly - into cultural ones, you get a different sense of freedom and civility, which is what Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s art conveys. This is also part of LIK’s policy - to connect with Western culture and, more broadly, global culture,” said Lozanov.

He pointed out that during communism, Christo was regarded as a defector, and therefore, what was published about him appeared only in so-called "secret bulletins" read by a select circle of party leaders. “Christo never gave up on his homeland but on communist Bulgaria, where free art was impossible. He could accept everything else, but not that, which is why he sought, as soon as possible, a place where he could freely create. Sadly, this situation continued even after 1989, fueling his fears that communism as a system left remnants still weighing down on Bulgaria. He never fully felt that he could return to Bulgaria completely free. I think that burdened him in some way,” Lozanov reflected.

“Jeanne-Claude had visited Bulgaria, but he carried this trauma from his youth. At the same time, he genuinely helped Bulgarians he felt connected to,” Lozanov added.

He shared that he had met Christo at his home in New York, where he and director Stoyan Radev had a long conversation that Christo liked. “The idea was to make a film about his art. But this film was never supported by our film center, for the same reason - because [of the assumption that] Christo didn’t love Bulgaria.”

“I believe that since 2016 and the The Floating Piers project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have become part of our cultural identity. Through them, their eyes, and their thinking, we experience the world. I speak of those who relate to art. There is no doubt they are among the greatest artists of the postmodern era. There is no doubt they will remain so,” Lozanov said.

According to him, the most important thing for Christo was freedom: “There is not only no art without freedom, but there is no individual without freedom. You are who you are to the extent that you are free. The less free you are, the less yourself you become. And this sense of identity, which passes through freedom, if you lose your freedom, is far worse than losing your name or other characteristics of your personality.”

/NF/