site.btaChristo’s Floating Piers: “The Brightest Star in the Sky of Installation Art”

The Floating Piers, which graced Lake Iseo in Italy for 16 days in 2016, were “the brightest star in the sky of the installation arts,” according to Prof. Emilia Konstantinova, Dean of the Art Theory Department at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv. “It was a composition forming a single whole with nature. An artwork which keeps memories forever, like the stars which still illuminate the night sky after ceasing to exist,” Konstantinova said during a presentation of the June issue of BTA’s LIK magazine, dedicated to the pioneering artist Christo (1935–2020) and his wife Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009).

The event took 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, via video conference.

The professor went on to say that The Floating Piers “left their imprint on cultural history with their aesthetics of geometry, showcased in a dahlia colour against the blue backdrop of Lake Iseo, the green of the small San Paolo Island and the rocks of Monte Isola.” She reminisced: “I’ll never forget what happened when I took the advice to take off my shoes and walk barefoot. The feeling was incredible. As Christo put it, it felt like walking down the spine of a whale.”

Konstantinova noted: “Christo and Jeanne-Claude remain unmatched in contemporary art in a very important way as they subjugated the corporate laws to art. This was coupled with a creative idea which may have occurred to many but often remained just imaginary, and therefore its physical implementation was a sign of genius.” This, according to the professor, is particularly true of the artistic couple’s large-scale installations which attracted many admirers.

Visited by a million people, The Floating Piers fetched EUR 88 million in proceeds for the region of Lombardy, which says enough about the massiveness of this work of art. It could not have materialized in an art gallery or a museum and generate economic growth for a whole region from there, Konstantinova said. “It was a phenomenal achievement in the field of art management as everything was meticulously balanced and organized,” she said.