Wrapped museums and monuments

These rooms exhibit various environmental projects carried out in the sixties and seventies, which include roofs of museum buildings and works presented at major international exhibitions.

In 1968, Christo and Jeanne-Claude “wrapped” entire buildings, in particular museums, for the first time. They did so with the Kunsthalle in Bern, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, their first work in the United States.

Also in 1968, at Documenta in Kassel (the main periodic international exhibition in Germany), a gigantic and aerial inflatable sculpture, 5600 Cubicmeter Package, was created in front of the Friedericianum building, the exhibition site.

In 1974, the art critic Achille Bonito Oliva organised the great exhibition “Contemporanea” in Rome, in which all the major international artists participated. Christo and Jeanne-Claude made one of their most extraordinary urban works: The Wrapped Roman Wall, covering an impressive 250-metre section of the Aurelian Walls with propylene fabric tied with ropes.

It is important to remember that all the environmental works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude have always been financed by the artists themselves with the sale of drawings, collages and scale models, original works of art of great quality but always directly connected and purposed for creating monumental urban interventions and in natural spaces. In order to maintain their creative independence, the artists have never used funding or sponsorships.