Christo and Jeanne-Claude are renowned, above all, for their temporary, monumental interventions in landscapes and cities. Fabric is a defining feature of their projects, which they use to wrap, conceal or otherwise manipulate buildings or landscapes.

The oil barrel sculptures and installations which they created since the beginning of their careers are just as numerous, though less well known. In the late 1950s, Christo started to wrap used oil drums which he had found on scrapyards or bought cheaply at recycling sites. Later, he began piling up the untreated oil drums to form ever larger structures.

The largest project of this kind to date is a giant sculpture made up of 410,000 oil drums in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. The project has been developing since 1977, and ever since the death of Jeanne-Claude in 2009 Christo has continued it on his own.

This book, published to accompany the large exhibition at Fondation Maeght in the south of France, shows many photos and pictures of works, some of which have never been published before. They offer a comprehensive insight into Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oil drum projects. Significantly, it contains a detailed documentation of a sculpture specially created by Christo for the famous Giacometti courtyard at Fondation Maeght.