CHRISTO (Bulgaria, 1935- USA, 2020). "The Floating Piers, Project for Lake Iseo, Italy", 2016. Collage. Unique piece. Signed and dated in the lower left corner. Signed and dated on the back. Attached certificate issued by the Guy Pieters Gallery signed by the artist. Measurements: 29,5 x 22 x 3 cm. One of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's most striking projects in Italy was the one carried out on Lake Iseo (about 100 km east of Milan), in which they placed 100,000 square meters of bright yellow fabric that floated and moved with the swaying of the waves. Called "The Floating Piers," it was a project self-financed by the artistic tandem, absolutely free and open to the public. "Those who experienced The Floating Piers felt as if they were walking on water, or perhaps on the back of a whale," Christo said. "The light and water transformed the bright yellow fabric into shades of red and gold over the course of sixteen days." The Floating Piers was first conceived by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1970. It was Christo's first large-scale project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized The Gates in 2005, and since Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009. An acknowledged artistic couple of the late 20th century, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's wrapped objects are some of the most extreme examples of conceptual art. Christo Valdimirov Javacheff studied between 1952 and 1956 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, then spent a year in Prague. In 1957 Christo fled the socialist state and settled in Vienna, from where he would travel to Geneva and finally to Paris. His life in Paris was characterized by economic deprivation and social isolation, which was increased by his difficulty in learning the French language. He earned money painting portraits, which he likened to prostitution. In January 1958, Christo made his first piece of "wrapped art"; he covered an empty paint jar with a canvas soaked in acrylic. Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in Paris in November 1958. In 1961 he tackled what would be his first project with large objects, wrapping barrels in the port of Cologne. In 1962, Christo and Jeanne-Claude tackled their first monumental project, "Rideau de fer", as a statement against the Berlin Wall. The work consisted of blocking off Visconti Street over the river with oil barrels. Although Christo was simultaneously holding his first gallery exhibition, it was the Visconti project that made him known in Paris. In 1964 the couple settled in New York. In 1968 they participated in Documenta 4 in Kassel, and in 1969 they undertook one of their most famous projects, that of wrapping the Little Bay waterfront in Sydney, Australia. Since then, they have completed numerous large-scale projects around the world, including "Running fence" and "Wrapped walk ways" in the United States, "Pont Neuf" in Paris, "Umbrellas" in the United States and Japan, and the Reichstag building in Germany.