Alexander Tolnay

The roots of an extraordinary pursuit
Never before has a comprehensive survey been brought together to demonstrate the developments of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's early works.

Beginning with pieces created in Paris and Europe between 1958 and 1964 -Packages, Wrapped Objects, Oil Barrels Structures, Show Cases and Store Fronts, the first proposals for Urban Temporary Objects, and Wrapped Public Buildings, 1961 - the book continues to the early 60s, a period during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude began moving their work out of the studio into open spaces to involve the general public with their art, such as the realizations of Dockside Packages, Cologne Harbor, 1961, and Wall of Oil Barrels-Iron Curtain, Rue Visconti, Paris 1961-62.

Finally, the book features the art created after they moved to New York in 1964, including preparatory studies (drawings, collages, and scale models of proposals for urban and rural temporary works) and realizations of the first Wrapped Public Buildings, Kunsthalle Bern Wrapped, 1968, Wrapped Tower and Wrapped Fountain, Spoleto 1968, 5,600 Cubicmeter Air Package, documenta IV, Kassel 1967-68, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Wrapped, 1969.

Early Works 1958-1969 ends with Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia 1968-69. The monumental wrapping of that coastline was only a taste of things to come in the following decades.

**The publication of Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Early Works 1958-1969 coincides with the exhibition of 384 early works from the collections of 39 museums and 121 private collectors in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and Venezuela.… (mer)