Riwaq Al Fikr - ADMAF Talks - Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the UAE: Friendship and Legacy

The panel brings together Ingrid Jochheim, private collector of Christo’s work; Vladimir Yavachef, Christo’s Director of Operations; Emily Doherty, Director of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award and Fabio Piano, Interim Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of NYU Abu Dhabi, as moderator. Together, they explore Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s forty-year connection with the UAE, offering an intimate glimpse into Christo’s life, ideas and enduring global legacy, including the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award, which continues to inspire future generations of artists.

Panelists:

Ingrid Jochheim, private collector of Christo’s work

Ingrid and Thomas Jochheim are the proud custodians of an extraordinary collection of artworks amassed over the past 49 years. The collection spans multiple artistic movements and notably includes a substantial body of work by visionary artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The first piece they acquired was a 1963 wrapped magazines package, which was a wedding gift in 1976. They later met the artist duo during the wrapping of the Reichstag building in Berlin in 1995. In subsequent years, they became not only devoted patrons of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work, sharing their own collection internationally, but also close friends of the artists.

Vladimir Yavachef, Christo’s Director of Operations

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1973, Vladimir moved to New York City at the age of 17 to study film at NYU and work for his uncle, Christo. Over the past 32 years, he has been involved in all of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s major projects and exhibitions in various capacities, both in and out of the studio. He began as photographer Wolfgang Volz’s assistant on The Umbrellas (USA/Japan, 1991) and went on to contribute to Wrapped Trees (Switzerland, 1998) and The Gates (USA, 2005). He later served as Operations Director for The Floating Piers (Italy, 2016) and Project Director for The London Mastaba (London, 2018).

After successfully realising Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s posthumous work L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (Paris, 2021), Vladimir is now working on bringing to life their final project The Mastaba (a project for Abu Dhabi) which, when completed, will be the largest and only permanent sculpture by the artist duo.

Emily Doherty, Director of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award

Emily Doherty is the Director of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award. She established the project for Christo in 2012, bringing together Christo, and later the Christo Foundation, with NYU Abu Dhabi and ADMAF as partners. Prior to that, she worked in Abu Dhabi for organisations including Zayed University, NYU Abu Dhabi and Sotheby’s Middle East. She currently lives in Somerset, England.

Moderator

Fabio Piano, Interim Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of NYU Abu Dhabi

Fabio Piano is the Interim Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of NYU Abu Dhabi, a role he assumed in June 2024. He previously served as Provost from 2010 to 2020 and is a distinguished biology professor at both NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU New York.

Piano holds a Laurea from the University of Florence and a PhD in Biology from NYU, where he also completed his undergraduate degree. He co-founded the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU New York and served as the inaugural director before taking on his new role. His research on the molecular mechanisms underlying embryonic development and gene regulation has led to significant discoveries published in journals like Nature, Science and Cell. Piano has received numerous grants and prestigious fellowships from the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

During his tenure as Provost of NYU Abu Dhabi, Fabio welcomed Christo to NYU Abu Dhabi every year from 2013 to 2019 for the unveiling of each Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award winning work. It is an honour that he is moderating this conversation about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work, Christo’s long relationship with the United Arab Emirates and the award itself.