Christo and Jeanne

昨天（April 09, 2007）我们Innovate or Die课上来了一对特别有趣的艺术家. Christo Cladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat-de Guillebon. They were born on the same day – June 13, 1935 – he in Bulgaria and she in Casablanca to a French family. I thought their works weird but Jeff, the professor, thrilled for their coming.

Now I would say, the works of them are beautiful, beautiful, and you will agree if you see the photography or documentary, probably in thrill.

At almost 72, they “stand up to these young people” for over two hours, answering all kinds of questions from the class.

Being asked why move to NYC, “When I was young I would say because my mother lives in Paris.” Jeanne responded.

“All projects are from our heads and hearts, and for us…Some we invested a lot of energy and time, but we lost the interest, so we dropped. If people happen to enjoy it, we certainly appreciate.” They also do the projects on their own. They “never raise money… If you accept somebody’s money (sponsorship), you have to what he says. This is life … (and) we don’t like that image (associated with sponsors)” Christo addressed.

They flew 71 times to Japan and talked to thousands local residents to get the Japan part of The Umbrellas installed. They wrote thousand-page environment reports to try to get Over The River approved and are still in process. They managed to get millions of lend credits from banks to finance their works and still have no bonds, no stocks, no real estate, nothing. Every dollar they get was spent on the works and “we always paid back the loan (by selling drawings, etc, but no commercial activities)” They earn credits “in (this) old fashion”.

Their works were often under enormous critics. “Once a lady (of the committee) pointed to me and said, ‘You are causing earthquake!’ I was so proud. Can I cause an earthquake?” – Jeanne. They are definitely intelligent, wonderful person, and obviously still young and innovative. They talk in a very casual way, interrupting, questioning and correcting each other from time to time.

When Christo said, “(at that time) we barely spoke English …” Jeanne stopped him right away, “You. That was you.” And Christo admitted, “I barely spoke English…” She is so cute. By the way, she dyed her hair into red.

Jeanne talking about finance, “we don’t have budget in advance. Because it would cost whatever it has to, like a child. Can you go home and ask your mom how much money she planned to have you?”

“We don’t take ideas from other people… The best way to kill a good idea is to propose to us. ”She laughed.

In the middle of class, she was reminded to announce, “we don’t answer questions about religions, politics, generalities and other artists.”

“You said ‘Because Christo is an artist, I have been an artist. If he were a dentist, I would have become a dentist.’ Is it still true?” Jeanne replied, “I am becoming a dentist now.” and couldn’t help laughing before finished.

“We were young but able to pay our rent, almost every month”. Everybody burst into laugh.

They described the conversation between them, “we scream each other a lot … (he said) ‘the road is too long!’ I fight back, ‘Can’t you see it is too short!’ Then he started thinking I am probably right. And I started thinking he is probably right.” Christo added, “That is the only way to reach the perfect length.”

“Pardon me. Legacy? Knock the wood and hope we won’t have legacy.” He was kind of surprised.

They arrived earlier than we expected and we did have something else to talk that afternoon. So Jeff took a chance to announce, “Last question! We have had too much of their time.” The two immediately clarified that they pretty much “enjoyed being here and being with the young people”. Jeanne is so smart that she quickly stopped in the middle and asked, “Professor has another class, right?” Jeff was so embarrassed that he flushed, “this class is good enough and I don’t need another one.” J

They told intelligent stories one after one. And I can talk about them day and night. They are such fantastic, fabulous artists, and truly innovative entrepreneurs. I feel lucky for meeting them.