Famed artist duo's gift to Tufts reimagined in Tufts Collection Spotlight: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

In 1997, the married artistic duo Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude, known collectively as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, gifted a selection of drawings and photographs to the Tufts University Permanent Art Collection.From March 1 to 30, the Aidekman Arts Center’s Slater Concourse Gallery will be, quite literally, putting these works into a new light. After many years of hanging in the Tisch Library, many of the photographs and sketches lost much of their quality and sharpness from the library’s harsh lighting. For the 20 year anniversary of receiving these prints, art history graduate student Mallory Ruymann, assisted by seniors Rotana Shaker and Chloe Hyman, curated a new exhibition with the images.

The original plans from the 1997 display of these works from Christo and Jeanne-Claude were not recorded. This second show puts the works into a new light and casts a different impact onto the works from what may have been 20 years ago.

"The exhibition features some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most famous works, including "Running Fence" (1976), a project installed in California's Sonoma and Marin Counties; "Wrapped Reichstag" (1995), in which the artists wrapped the German government building; and "The Gates" (2005) in Central Park" as stated in the exhibition program. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude use fabric to wrap certain objects, simultaneously obscuring and highlighting the site. All their projects are public and often in nature, so they are subject to the forces of nature as well as of people. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been slotted into many artistic movements, including Earth art, monumental art and site-specific art. The site-specificity and scale of their works are what have made them so memorable, but they are also what makes them difficult to categorize.

The duo is known for their staunch defense that their works do not try to make a political statement. However, many theorists and critics have disagreed with this sentiment and have placed political weight on the works. “Wrapped Reichstag” completely covered the German Reichstag, a site that represented the new German government which claimed to be transparent. By literally shielding the Reichstag, viewers could not see into it while the politicians who used the buildings could not see the public outside. Christo and Jeanne-Claude brought civilians' attention to the building by wrapping it, perhaps also alluding to the fact that the public is only engaged with government when it is absent and fails to do its job. These works have also certainly stirred up their own political controversies. When reports came out that the work “Surrounded Islands” had destroyed some of the ecosystems of the Biscayne Bay in Miami, Christo and Jeanne-Claude went to federal trial over the project. The featured sketches of the project “Over the Arkansas River” also display the artists' failed projects. The project proposed to install 5.9 miles of silver fabric panels suspended over a 42-mile stretch of the river. The project stirred up so much controversy that a local Colorado environmental group, Rags Over the River, filed multiple lawsuits against multiple departments and courts in order to prevent the project's completion.

If these works were meant to be site-specific and engaged with in person, visitors to the Slater Concourse show might wonder why these projects were so well-documented if part of their beauty and purpose rested in their ephemerality. When creating works that often span miles, budgeting is a huge concern. Christo and Jeanne-Claude did not want to use federal funding because they did not want to be limited in what they could and could not do with their projects. To bolster funding for their projects and to document their processes, Christo and Jeanne Claude sold multiple sketches and drawings as well as photographs of finished projects. Thus, the large-scale temporary works (sometimes only up for two days) would last far beyond their designated times.

"Although the projects sometimes culminate in the physical manifestation of an idea, the success of each project is not dependent upon a finished object. The essence of each project resides within its planning. Because Christo and Jeanne-Claude select public or semi-public sites for their projects, the scope and scale of their operations mimic corporate entities," the exhibition's press release noted.

One would imagine that the photos create a completely different effect than that of the large-scale installations, but they also pose some benefits. Our eyes can only see so far and so wide, and the photos bypass the limitations of our vision. However, the photos and sketches also lack the first-hand experience that only the site-specific installations can procure. Visitors will have to determine what the works lose or gain through photography and drawing on their own terms.