Christo’s Packages and Wrapped Objects explore the transformative effect fabric and tactile surfaces have when wrapped around familiar objects. The concealment caused by the fabric challenges the viewer to reappraise the objects beneath and the space in which it exists.

Many Packages and Wrapped Objects give few clues as to what lies under the fabric. While the contents may be cans, bottles or other refuse of daily life, what is inside matters only in the shape it gives the work of art. For other Packages and Wrapped Objects that are packaged in translucent polyethylene, little is left to the imagination, but the material gives the everyday objects an additional sculptural quality.

Another important aspect that the Packages and Wrapped Objects share is a quality of nomadic fragility. The coarse, unremarkable and seemingly left-over fabrics used to wrap the everyday objects create an artwork that is both difficult and unpolished. These materials suggest the temporary and transitional nature of the work, much like the traveling bundles of nomadic life – the package exists, but for a short time and can cease to exist in the blink of an eye. The works of art make permanent what is usually an impermanent creation. They not only draw attention to everyday objects but also to the things, like packages, that exist for only a short time.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude brought this act of wrapping to much larger proportions when they applied it to the environment, whether in nature or with a man-made structure. While it is a common and important motif in the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the last time the two artists ever had an idea for wrapping was in 1975, when they started working on The Pont Neuf Wrapped, a work they realized in 1985.

Text by Adam Thomas Blackbourn, 2011.

Virtual Tour

Click here to take a Virtual Tour of the exhibition Early Works 1958-69 on view at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany, 2001. To return, click on the signature on top of the page.