Christo abandons Over the River project due to Trump presidency

Artist Christo has announced the cancellation of his long-planned Over the River project in Colorado, citing the election of Donald Trump as a key reason. The project, conceived with his late wife Jeanne-Claude, involved suspending silver fabric panels over 42 miles of the Arkansas River. Christo stated, "Now the federal government is our landlord," referring to the federal land where the installation would be placed. He expressed reluctance to proceed with a project that would benefit the new administration. The cancellation also has significant financial implications: Christo estimates he has already spent approximately $15 million on the project, including $7 million on environmental impact studies and legal fees to overcome previous opposition. The artist had been working on Over the River for over 20 years, and had already considered abandoning it in early 2016 due to numerous obstacles, when the land was under the Obama administration. Christo is widely known to the Italian public for his 2016 installation The Floating Piers on Lake Iseo.