Hexton Gallery Will Present an Extensive Exhibition on Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Hexton Gallery in Aspen will host the first U.S. exhibition on the late Christo and Jeanne-Claude since Christo’s passing in 2020. Made in collaboration with the Christo Foundation, the show will mark the 50th anniversary of the Valley Curtain installation the couple installed in Colorado’s Rifle Gap.

Back in August of 1978, after 28 months of work, Christo and Jeanne-Claude draped a massive orange nylon tarp along a mountainous expanse of the Colorado State Highway 325. For two weeks, the quiet canyon road was transformed into an abstracted collage, that at the very least, reattuned passerbys to the region they thought they knew. Valley Curtain served as a precursor to many of the duo’s large-scale projects, including Wrapped Pont Neuf, The Umbrellas and Surrounded Islands — all of which only went on view for several weeks at a time.

Critics of the duo are quick to point out the simplicity and temporality within their work. In a 2014 interview with Colorado Public Radio, Christo reminded us of our own impermanence “and if you don’t see it, you don’t know it — you see photographs, films — this is not the same thing. It’s not a substitute, like our own lives.”

The Hexton exhibition will explore the many drawings and studies that led to both Valley Curtain and works that have never been shown to the public. “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Ephemeral Nature” will open on August 1, 2022. For those of you in Japan, the the Tokyo-based museum, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, will also showcase a detailed look at Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 60-year dream project, “L’Arc de Triomphe Wrapped” in two weeks time.

Elsewhere in art, Robert Nava takes over Pace London.