The Christo Interviews - Hans Ulrich Obrist

The Christo Interviews brings together a series of conversations between the artist, who is best known for the large-scale, site-specific environmental installations he created in collaboration with artistic partner and wife, Jeanne-Claude, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the pre-eminent commentator on and curator of contemporary art. Taking place between December 2012 and May 2020, the interviews provide insight into the individual minds of two of the art world’s most esteemed figures, while also tracking the unfolding of their entire working relationship. Hans Ulrich describes these as ‘werksttat interviews’, meaning ‘a workshop or laboratory of words’ and taken together, they also reveal the progress of The London Mastaba, Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park (2016-18), Christo’s first major public outdoor work in the UK, which coincided with an exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries outlining Christo and Jeanne Claude’s 60-year history of working with oil barrels. Fully illustrated with images of finished works, drawings and documentary photographs from throughout Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s long and successful career, this hardback reading book features previously unpublished material and the final conversation in the book was Christo’s last ever interview, recorded shortly before his passing.Â