site.btaChristo Did Not Flee Homeland, But Repression and Totalitarian Language

Christo did not flee his homeland: he fled repression and totalitarian language that put a ceiling over him, journalist Daniel Nenchev said 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 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.

Nenchev added that Christo’s escape from Bulgaria was not an act of renouncing his homeland, but a conscious liberation from the political and cultural constraints of the totalitarian regime. He said that the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude raises questions about language, beauty, and meaning, topics that “divide society” and are “points of conflict,” but it is precisely through them that art fulfills its social role.

The journalist noted that Javacheff’s work is deeply politically engaged and serves as a direct reaction to historical events. As an example, Nenchev cited Christo’s first major project - blocking off a street in Paris in 1962 - which was a direct response to the construction of the Berlin Wall.

“Because of that madness, Christo created another wall, on a small street, simply as an act of resistance to this inhuman event,” said Daniel Nenchev.

He also paid special attention to the issue of language as both a form of repression and liberation. It is symbolic, he said, that Jeanne-Claude also gave up her native French, and that the two of them communicated solely in English, a language that, as she once noted, allowed them to reach the entire world through their art.

Nenchev described Christo as “a symbol of Bulgarian liberation through art.”