Synopsis
In this title the works of the early period (1958-1969) of artistic activities by Christo and Jeanne-Claude are united to show how their exceptional career developed. From the very early small packages to wrapped barrels and other wrapped objects like chairs, tables, typewriters, bottles, flowers and telephones to the period of storefronts - some of them life-size - and the first proposals to wrap entire buildings, the experience of this art-form is presented. Already in the sixties the artists moved their work out of the studio into open space to confront the general public with their art. Early examples like the "Dockside Packages" at Cologne Harbor in 1961, the "Iron Curtain-Wall of Oil Barrels" blocking the Rue Visconti in Paris in 1962 and the "Wrapped Fountain" and "Wrapped Medieval Tower" in Spoleto finally led to the "5,600 Cubicmeter Package, Documenta 4, Kassel" an Air Package 280 feet high and to the first wrapped buildings, the wrapping of the "Kunsthalle Bern" in 1968 and the "Wrapped Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago" in 1969.
The book concludes with the work "Wrapped Coast, Little Bay, One million square feet, Sydney, Australia" when the wrapping of a whole coastline provided a taste of things to come in the following decade.
