Image via Complex Original
On June 13, 1935, the two people who would become the internationally-renowned artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on separate continents: Christo Javacheff in Bulgaria, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in Morocco. They met in Paris in 1958 and began a lifelong partnership in life and art. The pair are known for their massive-scale environmental projects, like hanging huge curtains across the hills of California, outfitting a group of islands in pink skirts, and wrapping entire buildings and monuments in fabric. Jeanne-Claude sadly passed away in 2009, but Christo continues to realize projects that they conceived together, and this week celebrates his 79th birthday.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude have long held that their works are purely aesthetic engagements, claiming no political, social, environmental, or conceptual meaning behind their projects. However, the monumental scale, global expanse, and unconventional methodologies have lent to deeper interpretations. The tactics of wrapping and covering in particular can have a range of lexical significance and symbolic effects, connoting charged concepts like concealment, enclosure, protection, renovation, and obsolescence, to name a few. Before and since Christo and Jeanne-Claude's monumental projects, other artists have used wrapping and covering as a technique and motif for numerous reasons, conveying a variety of artistic purposes, political and cultural meanings, and some purely aesthetic experiences as well.
In honor of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's shared birthday this week, check out That's a Wrap: The Best Wrapped, Covered, and Veiled Artworks.
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Wrapped Reichstag by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 1971-1995
The last, and perhaps most iconic building wrap Christo and Jeanne-Claude ever completed together was the Reichstag building in Berlin. The project was initially proposed in 1971, but the duo had to wait out the end of the Cold War, see through reunification, and negotiate financial and bureaucratic setbacks before they could finish the project in 1995. Despite all those 24 years of waiting, the installation only lasted two weeks before it was disassembled and recycled.
Veil by Fujiko Nakaya, 2014
For its 65th anniversary this summer, the Philip Johnson Glass House invited its first ever site-specific installation at the iconic building in New Caanan, Connecticut. The work, created by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya, is building in a thick cloud of fog that appears once every hour. The mist temporarily obscures the transparency of the glass box but eventually dissipates as it responds to the outside and environment, clearing away usually after 10-15 minutes. The installation is open until November 30.
Rebecca's Bagged Place by Iain Baxter&, 2013
When Rebecca Levy died in 2009, she left her London apartment and all of its contents to her downstairs neighbor, Raven Row Gallery. The gallery invited over the Canadian conceptual artist Iain Baxter&, who individually and entirely wrapped the place in plastic. Every wall, chair, lamp, and utensil was bagged or covered in sheet plastic, preserving the eclectic 1970s-style like an obsessive collector. Baxter& reinterpreted his 1966 installation Bagged Place, for which he similarly wrapped an entire four-room apartment in Vancouver, right down to a piece of toast in the toaster.
El Claustro by Penique Productions, 2011
Barcelona-based collective Penique Productions is comprised of artists Sergei Abrusa, Pablo Baque, Pol Clusella, and Chamo San. The group has developed a method for cloaking the interiors of spaces in large swaths of fabric by inflating an enormous, customized balloon inside an existing structure. The result is a stunning, monochromatic cavern contoured over the original architecture—almost like a reverse Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The team has created these environments in palaces, churches, museums, and even a bathroom.
All by Maurizio Cattelan, 2007
For art world prankster Maurizio Cattelan, All represents a sober and eloquent gesture. The nine shrouded figures laying on the ground evoke a crime scene or morgue, and the beautifully carved marble imbues them with classical monumentality. For Cattelan, though, the shroud is not always a serious or ominous motif. In Not Afraid of Love, 2000, a white sheet appears as a lazy, ineffectual, and funny attempt to disguise an elephant.
"Flesh Love" by Hal, 2011
In his recent series "Flesh Love," Japanese photographer Hal brings couples closer together by vacuum-sealing them in big plastic bags. Literally removing the air between them, the models seem to fuse together in their claustrophobic, anaerobic pods. Hal works quickly, though, and the couples are freed in under a minute.
Gray Veil by William Wegman, 1992
In classical art, a veil might signify the presence of a curvaceous woman or holy figure beneath it. In photographer William Wegman's Gray Veil, the telltale outline of a black nose and the subtle contour of the ear make quite clear that this cloth contains one of his famous Weimaraners. Earlier examples of Wegman's dog-drapery include Man Ray Under Sheet, 1976.
The Lovers I by Rene Magritte, 1928
Shrouded faces are a recurring motif in Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte's work. His complex and mysterious paintings of The Lovers depict a couple with white cloths over their faces, their identities, gazes, and expressions obscured. Some speculate that the image comes from a personal memory of his mother's suicide when he was 14 years old. Magritte witnessed his mother's body retrieved from a river, a nightgown wrapped around her head.
Wrapped Figure by Daniel Arsham, 2012
Daniel Arsham, a New York multidisciplinary artist, has made a number of sculptures that represent figures enfolded (and possibly lost) in gallery architecture. Arsham imagines gallery walls as flexible, cloth-like structures that someone could search behind (Wrapped Figure, 2012), break out of (Hollow Figure, 2012), or fall into (Hammock, 2007).
WRAP by SpY, 2013
Known for his cheeky, somewhat disorienting interventions in public spaces, the Spanish street artist SpY encased a police car in cellophane during the City Leaks Urban Art Fair in Cologne, Germany. The piece is a conceptual update of a previous gesture, CAUTION, 2008, where he wrapped a New York police car in yellow caution tape.
Bust of a Veiled Woman (Puritas) by Antonio Corradini, 1717-1725
In classical sculpture, finely rendered drapery, conveying thin, light fabric and soft skin in hard marble, is a sure sign of technical prowess and artistic virtuosity. By this standard, Italian Rococo sculptor Antonio Corradini was a master. The figure in his Bust of a Veiled Woman is covered in fabric so thin, she practically appears to be wearing wet tissue paper. A 1751 full-length figure, ironically called Modesty, appears to be wearing next-to-nothing except a flimsy, sheer cover dripping off her extremities.
"Burquoi" by Naneci Yurdagül, 2012
Rather than wrapping any object or space, German artist Naneci Yurgadül required visitors to cover themselves for a 2012 exhibition at the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany. Blue-veiled viewers, moved through a series of rooms containing religious objects, a photo of the twin towers, and a hall of mirrors, among other imagery. The costumes required viewers to participate in the exhibition and pointed to issues of religious, cultural, and national identity, gender roles, and political associations.
Dilston Grove by Ackroyd & Harvey, 2003
Covering isn't necessarily a concealing or immobilizing act; British artist duo Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey use living grass as a covering, highlighting an active process of growth and change. In 2003, they planted grass over the interior of an empty, deconsecrated church in London, bringing life and visitors back to the previously underutilized space. To make the experience more immersive, the pair joined with sound artist Graeme Miller, who composed an aural element for the environment.
Body Limits by Sandy Skoglund, 1992
Sandy Skoglund stages surreal tableaux, inhabited by mannequins and models and covered with brightly-colored and strangely-textured objects. In Body Limits, she wrapped a room and everything in it entirely in uncooked bacon. In other works, she has coated dioramas with materials like raisins, ground meat, wire hangers, popcorn, jellybeans, and cheese doodles.
Pink M. 24 Chaffee by Marianne Jorgensen, 2006
Unlike Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Danish artist Marianne Jorgensen uses the technique of wrapping for expressly political purposes. To protest Danish involvement in the war in Iraq, Jorgensen coordinated volunteers from all over the world to knit over 4,000 pink squares and sew them into a custom cozy for a former WWII combat vehicle. A visual and conceptual oxymoron, the fuzzy pink tank was displayed outside the Nikolaj contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen.
Springtime by Jeroen Eisinga, 2010-2011
In a performance of the practice known as "bee bearding," Dutch artist Jeroen Eisinga was swarmed by 150,000 live bees. He documented the event in a 19-minute black-and-white video. The work shows the process of covering, as well as its limits, moving into saturation and infestation. For all those bees, the artist only received 30 stings.
"Pattern and Degradation" by Rob Pruitt, 2010
For a 2010 exhibition, New York artist Rob Pruitt used silver plumbing tape to give a collection of 77 thrift-store chairs a shiny new look, giving the vastly varied array of seating some degree of order and design.
As a Tree I Can Feel the Wind by Kaarina Kaikkonen, 2011
Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen is known for large-scale installations, spanning rooms and landscapes with recycled clothing. As a special project for Art Miami 2011, she outfitted several palm trees in second-hand men's dress shirts at the entrances to the fair.
Wrapped Coast by Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 1968-1969
One of the couple's first natural landscape wraps on a colossal scale was a section of coastal cliffs along Little Bay in Sydney, Australia. It took a million square miles of fabric and 35 miles of rope to cover an area 1.5 miles wide and taller than Mount Rushmore.
Wrapped Motorcycle by Christo, 1962
Like the rest of us, Christo started small. Before he wrapped buildings or landscapes with Jeanne-Claude, he learned to wrap on smaller packages and everyday objects, like furniture, or this motorcycle. He began producing these smaller-scale wrapped works in 1958, the year he met Jeanne-Claude, though they did not wrap together for several years.