Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Alpine Works in Val Ferret

In Val Ferret, at the foot of Mont Blanc, two historic mountain huts from 1714 host an exhibition of around fifteen works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, curated by Paolo Repetto. The show, open until August 20, is organized by collector and cultural activist Glorianda Cipolla, president of the local FAI chapter. Cipolla recalls Christo telling her he wanted to do things without reason, which inspired her. The displayed pieces are preparatory sketches—what the artist called "stock options"—sold to self-fund their large-scale projects. The exhibition highlights the couple's utopian interventions in natural and urban environments, exemplified by Christo's 1969 packaging of 5,600 cubic meters of air into a skyscraper-high balloon at Documenta IV in Kassel. The works embody a pure freedom of imagination through a rationalist design language, akin to artist business plans.