Christo

New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
Acquired by the present owner from the above in June 1979

In excellent condition; framed in plexiglass
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Christo, later working with his spouse and artistic collaborator Jean-Claude, worked from the 1960s to the present on ambitious installations, involving the wrapping of recognizable monuments, buildings, and geographical landmarks. His plans were elaborate and detailed, requiring numerous sketches, plans and mapping.

The Wrapped Reichstag, completed in 1995, was one of the duo’s most successful and impressive undertakings. Planning for the project began in 1971, when Michael Cullen, a Berlin historian, suggested to Christo that the building, then little used except as an exhibition hall, would be an ideal place for him to realize his dream of wrapping a national capitol. But cold war tensions meant that there was little chance of getting the West German Government’s approval, and the project lay nearly dormant until the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany.

“Christo and Jean-Claude say that their art is as much about process as product; it is no accident that the monitors wear T-shirts with the legend ‘Wrapped Reichstag 1971-95,’ since the official view here is that the work of art began its existence when Christo said yes to Mr. Cullen's suggestion, and that every early sketch, every letter about the project to the German Government, every debate in the German press and every street-corner argument about the merits of wrapping the Reichstag is itself a part of the artwork. The artists think of the actual wrapping as only the final chapter in a 24-year work: which is perhaps why the notion of leaving it up for only two weeks does not disturb them. The entire work, in their view, is as much a study in the way attitudes are transformed over time as a pure object in itself” (Paul Goldberger, “Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag: Symbol for the New Germany,” The New York Times, New York, June 23, 1995, n.p.).