New large-scale project: The Floating Piers by Christo

Christo has not worked in Italy for the past 40 years. This will soon be changing when he sets up a gigantic floating pier on Lombardy's Lake Iseo for a 16-day installation in June 2016. For a distance of three kilometres visitors and locals will be able to stroll just above the surface of the water from Sulzano on the mainland to the islands of Monte Isola and San Paolo, which the work of art encircles. The floating walkway will be 16 metres wide and made of polyethylene elements covered with a shimmering pale yellow fabric. As a linking element the fabric itself will continue along a further 1.5 kilometres of pedestrian streets in Sulzano and Peschiera Maraglio. The Floating Piers will be Christo's first large-scale project since The Gates, which he exhibited in 2005 with his wife, Jeanne-Claude, who died in 2009. Like all his projects, this one will be funded through sales of his art. Once the 16-day exhibition is over, all the installation components will be removed and recycled.