site.btaChristo Drawings, Designs, Letters Displayed for 10 Days Only in New Sofia Art Space

Personal letters of Hristo Yavashev - Christo to his family, children's drawings and previously unseen works are on display in an exhibition "From Yavashev to Christo". It is on for ten days only, between December 13 and 23, in a new art space in central Sofia at 46, General Gurko Street. It is a conceptual collaboration between Maria Stefanova of Gallery 2.0 and Silvia Zaimova of Marché Antiqué. 

The exhibition includes 21 works - early drawings by Yavashev, signed lithographs, posters from projects, handwritten letters to his brother as well as the rope used in the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe. 

The exhibits are from personal collections and most are for sale, the team of the new art space specifies. 

"The earliest things we have are from 1954 – drawings that have never been shown to the general public before. Apart from these, there are some of his childhood drawings of characters from various plays. He created them to play with puppets with his brother and on the back of each is the name of the character in his handwriting," Sylvia Zaimova told BTA.

“They are much earlier than the drawings and paintings, but they are not in their context,” she clarifies. Some are even started and unfinished, uncut. The images are diverse, from different eras, but make one feel that the subject of art has fascinated him since he was a child. "We'll show personal letters he sent to his brothers in which he wrote, 'Understand that everything is art and nothing else matters' - there's even a drawing in the letter," the gallerist shows. At the time, his brother Anani was studying theatre and began to make a play, for which Christo sent him an idea for the play's set design, she notes.

"For Bulgarian audiences, who have doubts about his Bulgarian language proficiency, you can see in these letters what an amazing attitude he had to speech in general, to expression, and how beautifully he wrote," says Silvia Zaimova. They also show a Christmas letter that Christo wrote from Prague to his family. He writes in the letter: "My letter is very restless, even silly if you read it in a bad mood [...] I wish you success and faith in art".

"See if you can think of another person who has given their life to one thing only," says Zaimova. 

Maria Stefanova  said that she watched a video recently about the Valley Curtain, the diant curtain project of Christo and Jean-Claude in Rifle, Colorado”. “It's impressive! Tremendous engineering by a man of art," says. 

"And let's not forget that they are all funded by his own art," adds Silvia Zaimova. There was never a gallerist representing him, or a country behind his back - never," the two gallerists note. "We have therefore let this exhibition speak for itself. So much has been written about it, said about it, that we should only admire it and be happy to have been contemporaries," they say.

According to the two gallerists, Christo drew his great strength from his wife, Jean-Claude de Guillebon: they were even born on the same day of the same year. "She gave him confidence, she gave him strength," they say. "They complemented each other and created such much art," they note.

The gallerists say that for his large-scale projects, Christo collaborated with engineers from different parts of the world, including the Mastaba, the Abu Dhabi project of Christo and Jean-Claude which was commenced in 1977 but was never implemented in the intended scale. "We hope that one day Mastaba will be realized. There are various solutions for it - on how to ensure the survival of such a gigantic structure that would be seven times the size of the Pyramid of Cheops. There is a Japanese solution, there is a German solution, there are four different options,” they explain.

"Art, in my opinion, is what guided him, made him leave Bulgaria and carry out his projects," said Maria Stefanova. “He was very forward thinking. Sometimes a project was realized thirty years after it was conceived,” she noted. "For me, he is an engineer of art," the gallerist said.

Sylvia Zaimova described him as "sensual, warm and very highly emotional”. “A subtle person who captures time. And somehow he has managed to anticipate processes and challenge them".