Page 21 - Studio Internationa - March 1971

4. Parliament or prison.' artist. To work on the scale of the 560o cubic 1William S. Rubin, Dada, Surrealism and their
Here is a clue to another aspect of Christo's metres package, on the contrary, involved other Heritage. Exhibition catalogue, the Museum of
Modem Art, New York, 1968..
aesthetics, which has to do with the location of people beside the artist, from the planning to its 'William S. Rubin, Christo Wraps the Museum.
meaning, usually regarded as the central value building. The artist is thus engaged socially, in a Foreword in Exhibition catalogue, the Museum of
of art, transmitted by the artist and received by way dissimilar from the traditional studio Modem Art, New York, 1968.
3Christo. Exhibition catalogue, Galeria Apollinaire,
the spectator. In architectural terms, however, situation. (Operationally, Chardin and Pollock, Milan, June—July 1963.
Christo proposes to locate meaning in the for example, are more like than unlike one 4Conversation with the author, September 1968.
subsequent usages of a building, and speculates another; on the whole, the avant-garde of the 'Ibid.
on what these might be. Similarly in his objects twentieth century has been highly conservative
and thresholds he is creating a situation in in work-sharing methods.) Christo surmounted
which meaning is in the variables of the spatial these problems brilliantly, and showed his
experience of the spectator and cannot be capacity to make a second start on the site, after
predicted accurately by the artist. Thus meaning the loss of several thousand dollars worth of
follows the making of the work of art, instead of helium.
preceding it, or growing with it. Christo's He has found a way of making current art
category of Temporary Monuments is operate on the scale of the city, without resorting
important, an acknowledgement, among others to covert forms of Baroque monumentality, as
in the post-war period, that the value of art is in most new works intended for public sites. He
not exclusively bound to ideas of fixity or proposes, as a reality, a new spatial scale for art
permanence. He has accepted a temporary status which would at least match, in duration and
for his art when he has packaged whole trees, area, a carnival or a play. His training in the
which will die and shrink, or girls, whose middle '50s, with Sergei Vasseliev (Meyerhold's
tolerances of their mantles is limited. Other follower) and F. F. Burian (Brecht's friend),
temporary situations were Christo's developed the capacity to plan for big spaces,
arrangements of oil drums, on the docks in build models, and visualize graphically.
Cologne and in the street. The aesthetic of an Christo's monuments are important because
expendable art is no less serious no less rigorous, they realize in terms of objects a scale which
than that attached by idealist art criticism to otherwise remains largely untouched in art,
supposedly immutable works. The huge scale except in later Happenings. Other big schemes,
at which Christo is now able to work presumes such as Mack's Sahara Project, frequently
impermanence. The art is occasional, but our depend for their grandeur on the fact that they
involvement with an occasion can be as are not working projects. Oldenburg's scale-
satisfactory, as absorbing, as with art of an twisting monuments are basically conceived in
hypothetical permanence. In 1968 Christo terms of the capriccio, for instance (paintings
packed the Kunsthalle, Bern, to celebrate the which juggled monuments in new topographies).
museum's fiftieth anniversary; the nature of the The problem is to get art on the new scale out
building provided the occasion. At Spoleto, of the project stage into the realm of objects and
Christo wrapped two buildings, on the occasion events (without just littering up the world with
of the city's festival. bigger Henry Moores and Alexander Calders).
At Kassel, for documenta 4, Christo Christo does this, without any softening of the
demonstrated his capacity to work on a huge line his art was following before he went public.
scale, not by covering an existing structure, but Christo said recently, 'I want to present
by creating an entirely new form. The 5600 something that we never saw before.
cubic metres package is a 28o feet high fabric Something that is not an image, but a real
envelope with a diameter of thirty-three feet. thing—like the pyramids in Egypt or the Great
It was designed by Christo in consultation with Wall of China. The China Wall is the most
Mitko Zagoroff, an engineer at Massachusetts completely old-fashioned product, but it is one
Institute of Technology. The first project was to of the most marvellous things. Two thousand
support a transparent skin with internal years old. It is implacable'.4 As he has been able
chambers of helium, but the second version, to move away from reliance on waste products,
which is the one that stayed up, is supported he considers his Temporary Monuments can
by air and guy ropes (12,000 feet of them), now be less precipitously temporary; their
and is opaque. It was set in the Park at short-life characteristics can be, perhaps,
Kassel, between the Orangerie and the lake, extended, phased more slowly. 'The new
huge—about the height of Mies van der Rohe's materials I use are more permanent. The Kassel
Seagram Building—but as nervously responsive package is very strong and can stay perhaps ten
to air pressures as a tendril of seaweed to water years. I would like to make a product too, and
currents. The package is huge but visibly keep it up for a long time'.5 q
sensitive. The process of working at this scale
involves the artist in problems of funding and
logistics, from consultations beforehand, finding
the material, making working drawings and
models, to on-site improvisation. 2 Christo
One advantage, or beauty, of the artistic Wrapped Campamile Project 1969-70
process since the sixteenth century has been that Collage 71 x 56 cm.
it is a situation of total control; all decisions, 3 Christo
Wrapped Campanile Project 1969-70
conceptual or technical, originate with the Collage 71 x 56 cm.
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