The partnership of mononymous artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude produced some of the most recognizable pieces in contemporary art.  One might say the pair’s prime medium was ambiguity, with all final pieces being temporary installations that left behind only memories, photographs and a multitude of preparatory sketches and collages.  “I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain,” said Christo of his process.  The couple’s environmental installations were decidedly non-conceptual, the only concept being the immediate aesthetic impact and temporary nature of their work. 

The partnership of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in both art and matrimony, was a peculiar one.  They were both born on the same day.  Neither would fly in the same aircraft, so that if one had died in a crash, the other could continue with their projects.  Although the two used only their first names, their son Cyril used Christo as his last name.  These eccentricities only added to their myth.  While Christo was formally trained at art academies, Jeanne-Claude was entirely self-taught.  She claimed that her interest in art was purely based on Christo, and that if he had become a dentist, she would have chosen the same profession.  Their first collaboration came in 1961 with a work called The Iron Curtain.  The duo blocked a narrow Parisian street with 89 industrial oil barrels.

The couples most recently completed project, “The Gates (1971-2005)”, was a series of 7,503 bright saffron gates that hung a woven nylon fabric of the same color.  The project attracted equal amount of acclaim and controversy.  New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg presented the duo with the "Doris C. Freedman Award for Public Art" for the installation.  The work also became the subject of ridicule for Keith Olbermann and David Letterman.

Often Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work was dated according to how many years it took to complete the project, including initial idea to completion.  For example, “The Gates (1971-2005)” took 25 years to gain permission to complete.  Similarly, other site-specific pieces such as “Wrapped Trees (1966-98)” and “Wrapped Reichstag (1971-1995)” used this device.

The collaboration that lasted over half a decade ended in 2009 when Jeanne-Claude died of complications from a brain aneurism.  The couple were working on “Over the River”, fabric panels over the Arkansas River in Colorado and begun in 1992, and The Mastaba, 410,000 oil barrels arranged as a mastaba, a pyramid like tomb, in the United Arab Emirates.  Christo continues to work on the project by himself.