Pont Neuf Wrapped by Christo & Jeanne-Claude (image courtesy of Michel Bourdais)
In a tribute to the late environmental artists Christo & Jeanne-Claude, the French photographer and street artist JR plans to use Paris’s Pont Neuf as a canvas for an installation work.
Christo Javacheff became known for large-scale environmental and installation works ranging from The Gates in Central Park to the Surrounded Islands in Biscayne Bay, Florida. Although his works were initially attributed solely to him, they were nearly always co-created with his wife, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. Even after credit for these installations was given to both artists, some publications still excluded Jeanne-Claude’s name. Regardless of what the public knew, their first well-known installation was Pont Neuf Wrapped in 1985.
The Pont Neuf is one of Paris’s bridges that cross the Seine, spanning the western tip of the Île de la Cité. Despite the name, which means ‘new bridge,’ it is actually the city’s oldest bridge. Christo & Jeanne-Claude had been fixated on wrapping as a transformative process that makes viewers see the subject anew, from a simple chair to the Arc de Triomphe. The Pont Neuf was their first monumental wrapping project, conceived in 1975. It took years of planning and city approval, but the duo wrapped the bridge, keeping it wrapped for two weeks and attracting three million visitors.
Christo’s nephew, Vladimir Javacheff, who serves as director of the Christo & Jeanne-Claude Foundation, stated that an installation commemorating the Pont Neuf Wrapped has been in the planning stages since 2015. The artist JR seemed like a good choice to help design this commemoration. For nearly 20 years, he has been creating large public installations using his photographs as source material. The works address a range of issues, from immigration to income inequality. But he almost always focuses on individuals and identity in his work, turning his photographs into enormous representations of people. He laid them out on New York City streets and turned the houses of a Brazilian favela into eyes looking back across the city. However, out of all the things he’s accomplished, JR has called Pont Neuf Cavern “100% the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.”
The concept drawings JR has prepared show not a strict recreation of Pont Neuf Wrapped, but more of a reimagination. The current plan is to wrap the bridge, but in a very different way from how Christo and Jeanne-Claude did. Rather than covering the bridge with large tarps secured with rope, JR plans to build a structure around it to create the appearance of a mountainous ridge. Pedestrians and vehicles crossing will travel through the installation, which will be designed to appear like a large grotto or cave from the inside. The reinterpretation of the original work not only pays homage to Christo & Jeanne-Claude but to the structure’s history. The Pont Neuf was the first stone bridge in Paris, made from limestone quarried north of the city. Pont Neuf Cavern takes the bridge back to the stone from which it was carved over four centuries ago.
JR’s team planned on carrying out the project this year for the fortieth anniversary of Pont Neuf Wrapped. However, complications have pushed things back to June 2026.