site.btaChristo and Jeanne-Claude Center Launched in Artist's Native Gabrovo

A Christo and Jeanne-Claude Center has opened in this central Bulgarian city where the late world-famous environmental artist was born in 1935. The three-day series of events over the weekend (October 6-8) included two exhibitions: "Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Projects" and "Born in Gabrovo", open studios of ten Bulgarian resident artists, film screenings, children's workshops, and a pop-up shop for limited editions, plus a sound installation and sculptures.

The artist's nephew Vladimir Yavachev, Christo & Jeanne-Claude Operations and Project Director, addressed the guests at the Center on Saturday evening. "What matters most about this major artist residency project is that the place really feels alive already. Young people infuse this place with tangible energy," Yavachev said. He noted that the Center is one of a kind in Bulgaria on this scale.

The organizers from Gabrovo Municipality and the Museum of Humour and Satire thanked the America for Bulgaria Foundation for supporting financially the launch of the new cultural institution.

The Idea

The idea to set up a centre for contemporary art in Gabrovo honouring its celebrity son dates 30 years back, said curator Margarita Dorovska. In January 1992, a local newspaper suggested the establishment of a permanent exhibit of the Christos' works in Gabrovo. A Municipal Council resolution of June 2008 backed the initiative. By an agreement with the artist and his brothers Stefan and Anani Yavachev of 2013, 50 posters were donated to Gabrovo Municipality which committed to translate the idea into reality. In June 2022, the local government obtained a technical assistance grant from the European Commission under the Support to New European Bauhaus Local Initiatives Programme. Thanks to that funding, Ramboll Management Consulting, who take credit for the extension to Tate Modern (2016) and the Helsinki Central Library (2018), have helped the project team develop the institutional and business aspects of the Center, conduct a functional analysis, and compile a brief for an international architectural competition.

The project team has so far held more than 20 focus groups, discussions and meetings with the local art, education and business community and various national and international institutions to identify needs, stakeholders and partners, including Plovdiv and Burgas municipalities, the Arts and Crafts School in Tryavna, the Gabrovo Technical University, museums and NGOs.

The Concept

The Center is as multidimensional as Christo and Jeanne-Claude's art, stretching out of the typical studio practice and exhibition space into engineering, environmental, urbanism and business aspects. It sets itself the challenging objective to provide a venue for artists, designers, architects, engineers, ecologists, production managers, manufacturers, collectors, film directors and even financiers to meet and collaborate in cross-disciplinary projects invoking the Christos' holistic method of conceiving, planning and deploying their ambitious creations.

As a living organism, the Center will be staging rapidly rotating temporary exhibitions presenting young artists' work sharing common features with the couple's projects. The exhibition spaces will also visualize Christo's childhood in Gabrovo and the city's textile industry. Resident artists' studios, a makers' space, a textile workshop and a video/photo/film studio will fit in, too, plus a co-working space, a creative industries accelerator, and an innovation office. There will be a textiles library and a book library on contemporary and public art. Young parents and kids and teenagers will have a community space of their own. The ambitious project comes complete with an event space and a cafe and restaurant.

In future, the Center plans to expand its international cooperation and train local curators, managers and coordinators for art in a public space setting. Team-building services for mid/senior management will be available as well, based on the Christos' project implementation model.

Embodying the couple's values and work ethic, the Center is intended to evolve organically, going through testing, prototyping and feedback stages, redesigning the not so successful activities and abandoning the failing ones.

The Site

The building that houses the Center was picked for a reason. It was constructed in the 1960s to accommodate a knitwear secondary school (est. 1946) which was transformed into a Vocational Secondary School for Textiles and Fashion Design in 2003 but was closed down in 2009. For a century and a half now, textiles have been a major industry for Gabrovo, also known as "the Bulgarian Manchester". Christo's father, Vladimir Javacheff, himself owned a textile mill. Not surprisingly, the common denominator of the couple's works was the use of fabric, cloth, textile - fragile and temporary material which translates the temporary character of their art.

So a textiles school building couldn't be more appropriate for the Center. Moreover, its shell offers a total built-up area of some 12,000 sq m, spacious high-ceiling labs and workshops that can be converted into an exhibition and production site with a variety of new functions. The general condition of the structures is very good, making it possible to reuse and integrate many of the original features, fittings, machinery and furniture. When remodeled, the Center will be a nearly zero-emission building.

Yet another advantage is the proximity to the Museum of Humour and Satire, which facilitates the formation of a cluster of interest to art lovers and tourists.

Gabrovo Municipality acquired ownership of the building through a gratuitous transfer from the Ministry of Education and Science in November 2022. The structure has been cleaned and rewired. An international architectural competition for its renovation is expected to be announced in early 2024.