Christo: Wrapping Art

The monumental installations erected by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in public spaces around the globe left a lasting impression on contemporary art and changed our perception of the world. Two works at Dorotheum shine a spotlight on some of the artist couple’s most remarkable projects: Surrounded Islands and Wrapped Reichstag.

Married artist collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude were masters at transforming vast public spaces into stages for magical moments: in New York, it was the saffron yellow “gates” in Central Park; in California and Japan, the bright yellow and cornflower blue umbrellas. Running fabric fences and valley curtains billowed along highways and mountain slopes in the United States, while at Lake Iseo, near Brescia in Italy the public was invited to step onto a pier and literally walk on water. Their work drew widespread attention in Germany as well, most notably with the iconic 1995 wrapping of the Reichstag building – a project they had passionately pursued for over 20 years. Its realisation became a national political symbol of renewal and the rebirth of democracy.

Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff was born on 13 June 1935 in Gabrovo, northern Bulgaria. His future wife, Jeanne-Claude, the daughter of a French military family, was born on the same day in Casablanca. As a young artist at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, Christo soon found himself at odds with the socialist-realist ideology imposed by his professors. Disillusioned with the communist regime, he fled to Vienna in a goods wagon before making his way to Paris. There he immersed himself in the works of Camus and Sartre, while earning a living by painting portraits of socialites. It was in Paris that he met Jeanne-Claude, when her mother commissioned him to paint her portrait. Their personal connection blossomed into a lifelong artistic partnership.

It was also during those years that Christo first began to experiment with fabric, driven by the idea that every object deserves a place in art. He wrapped boxes, bottles, chairs and even cars in canvas and tied them together with rope and string. This playful approach to wrapping and concealing objects proved remarkably versatile: the objects themselves were both hidden and (paradoxically) revealed, and the viewer, suddenly deprived of familiarity, was thrust into a realm of new possibilities and different ways of seeing.

One of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most spectacular projects was Surrounded Islands (1980–1983), an installation that transformed the natural environment into a symbiotic blend of art, city and nature. “We are fascinated by the meeting between the fluidity of the water and the sturdiness of the earth”, Christo remarked in a 2019 interview. “When we arrived in Florida in the late seventies, we drove around with a journalist from the Miami Herald. She was entrusted with driving us around Miami in different communities, and we were crossing the Biscayne Bay. We repeatedly asked her to cross the causeway again. She thought we would like to wrap a bridge. But no, we were looking at the islands. We wanted to surround the island with the floating fabric.”

For two weeks, several islands in the Greater Miami area – many of which had been used as rubbish dumps – were given a dramatic new look. Christo and Jeanne-Claude encircled each island with 603,870 square metres of floating pink woven polypropylene fabric that stretched 61 metres from the shoreline into the bay. The 17 April 1983 edition of the “Orlando Sentinel” stated: “Pink used to mean flamingos, sunsets and art deco hotels. Now it means Christo.”

Preparations for Surrounded Islands were extensive and complex, requiring countless meetings with government and local officials to secure permits. From 1981, a diverse team of lawyers, engineers, marine biologists and ornithologists worked with Christo and Jeanne-Claude on the project. Advance work included the removal of 40 tonnes of bulky waste from the site. According to art critic Jacob Baal-Teshuva, the result “was one of the most unforgettable and poetic sights art has produced in modern times”.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s projects captivated a wide audience with their aesthetic beauty and almost magical aura – even those who might never otherwise have interacted with contemporary art. The fabrics they used shimmered in vibrant colours that reflected the changing light of the sun, sky and clouds. Although all physical traces were eventually removed and recycled, detailed documentation, drawings, collages and models stand as lasting testaments to the singularity of the couple’s art.