Burt Chernow papers, 1930-2002

Sound recordings are mainly comprised of interviews of the Christos, their family, and their associates conducted by Burt Chernow between 1984 and 1996, in the course of his research for . Chernow wrote the biography chronologically, collecting research for each period of the Christos' lives in sequence, so the early interviews deal mainly with their early years, and later interviews with more recent years. In some cases, the subject content of the interview -- often a place or project name -- is indicated on the tape label, in which case it is noted in the container list. Interviews with associates include other artists, curators, people who worked on the Christos large-scale projects, critics, and others who knew them personally. Among the many significant interview subjects are Arman, Mary Bauermeister, Leo Castelli, Lynn Hershman, Ray Johnson, Allan Kaprow, Ivan Karp, Albert and David Maysles, Claes Oldenburg, Pierre Restany, Niki de Saint Phalle, Peter Selz, Harry Shunk, Holly Solomon, Saul Steinberg, and Sam Weiner.

In addition to the more formal interviews, a series of impromptu interviews were conducted by Ann and Burt Chernow during the three Christo projects that were executed while Chernow was working on the biography: the , , and the . These project-related interviews and recordings were typically made on site with spectators and producers of the projects while they were on view. Also found are lectures, press conferences, broadcast programs, recorded notes, and music, including a 1981 lecture on Christo by Jan Van Der Marck.

Interviews of Christo by others, and lectures given by Christo which pre-date the period of Chernow's research, are filed at the end of the series. Some were recorded off the air, and others were recorded by Chernow or other attendees to the appearances. Some appear to have been copied from original recordings, and the sound quality is poor. Two musical recordings associated with Christo projects are also found in the series, including a protest song about "Surrounded Islands," and music composed for the Japanese installation of "Umbrellas."

Chernow's research was conducted chronologically, that is, Chernow collected information about each period of their lives and then wrote his first draft of that portion of the biography before moving on to the next period. The interviews reflect this process, with earlier interviews covering earlier periods of the artists' lives, and later interviews covering later periods as each section was researched and written.

Most of the interviews have partial transcripts in series 1.3, which were created by Burt Chernow. The transcripts typically contain summarized portions, with only the portions Chernow found most salient to his research transcribed. The recordings in this series, then, are a unique record of the complete interviews that took place. Recorded conversations with Jeanne-Claude regarding corrections to Chernow's drafts of the biography, created in 1995-1997, do not have typically have transcripts. See series 1.3 for more details.

Interviews with Christo and Jeanne-Claude are filed chronologically at the beginning of the series, and interviews with others about the Christos follow, filed alphabetically by name. Occasionally interviews from both of these categories are found on the same tape, and cross-references are provided in the inventory. For recordings made during the Pont-Neuf project (Sept 1985), the Umbrellas project (October 1991), or the Reichstag project (June 1995), cassettes are filed by project, with cross-references to subjects of the project-specific interviews found in the alphabetical inventory list. The collected interviews and lectures (1977-1984) are filed chronologically. Although the tape inventory created by Ann Chernow that came with the collection does not seem to follow any logical sequence, inventory numbers written on the tapes are included in the container list to facilitate access to the physical tapes in the collection.

Additional sound recordings include spoken translations of Christo letters to family in series 1.1, Biographical Materials, a spoken history of the biography project by Ann Chernow, found in series 1.6, Business Records, and an interview with Arman for an article about the artist from 1993, found in series 2, Other Writings.