Christo & Jeanne Claude

Running Fence

5.5 meters (eighteen feet) high, 40 kilometers (twenty-four and half miles) long, extending East-West near Freeway 101, north of San Francisco, on the private properties of fifty-nine ranchers, following rolling hills and dropping down to the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay, was completed on September 10, 1976.

The art project consisted of: forty-two months of collaborative efforts, the ranchers' participation, eighteen public hearings, three sessions at the Superior Courts of California, the drafting of a four-hundred and fifty page Environmental Impact Report and the temporary use of hills, the sky and the Ocean.

All expenses for the temporary work of art were paid by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through the sale of studies, preparatory drawings and collages, scale models and original lithographs.

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latest project

Over The River
Arkansas River, Colorado




Fabric panels suspended horizontally clear of and high above the water level will follow the configuration and width of the changing course of the river, during a period of two consecutive weeks to be selected between mid-July and mid-August (year to be determined).

Steel wire cables, anchored on the upper part of the river banks, will cross the river and serve as attachment for the fabric panels.The woven fabric panels, sewn in advance, with rows of grommets at the edges perpendicular to the river, will create shimmering waves of fabric, 3 to 7 meters (10 to 23 feet) above the river bed. The 10,7 kilometer (6,7 mile) long stream of successive panels, will be interrupted by bridges, rocks, trees, bushes and for esthetic reasons, creating abundant flows of light.

Wide clearance between the banks and the edges of the fabric panels will create a play of contrast allowing sunlight to illuminate the river on both sides. When seen from underneath, standing on the rocks at the edge of the river, at water level or by rafting, the luminous and translucent fabric will highlight the contours of the clouds, the mountains and the vegetation.

As with our previous art projects, Over The River will be entirely financed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, through the sale by C.V.J. Corporation (Jeanne-Claude Christo-Javacheff, President) of Christo’s preparatory drawings, lithographs, collages and early works. As it was done for past projects, most of the materials will be recycled.

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