Christie And Jenny Claude's Installation Art

Since the1970s, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have begun theircollaborative practice that they have maintained to the present day. Theycreated large-scale outdoor installations with beautiful visual sense andvivid effect. Their mode of art production and way of display had aprofound meaning on contemporary art history. The thesis will be dividedinto three chapters and I will focus on analysis and introspections of theideas, genre, behaviors and social influence of their works of art. In ChapterOne, I will highlight the behavior of their early works of art which laterknown as “wrapping objects”. With coverage and concealment effectrendered by wrapping, Christo endowed daily life objects with new butsimilar qualities. Under defamiliarization, he would like to uncover usevalue of objects which immersed and disappeared in consumption. The shiftto an outdoor installation, their aim was not only focusing on wrapping theobject itself, but also signaled their ambition and concerns to real lifeexperience and social environment which contributes to form the object. InChapter Two, with illustration and analysis on the process of creating“Running Fence”, I will move to study how Christo and Jeanne-Claudecooperated with different subject in different fields to complete the project.This section involves with their complex interaction and social engagementwith government departments, various organizations and local ranchers toget permissions to install “Running Fence”. In addition, theirtemporarily-displayed works of art challenge the traditional art exhibitionsheld in museums. The last Chapter will turn to “The Gates, Project forCentral Park, New York City” in February2005. I will discuss about thecouple’s unique way of raising fund to support projects by themselves. Theydo not accept any sponsorship or public funds for their works. On thecontrary, the projects were to be funded solely by the artists’’ own money,generated from the sale of Christo’s original preparatory drawings, collagesand scale models. Meanwhile, I will analyze the media’s function played inconstructing this installation, and to explore the inner feelings and bodyexperience of multitudes when they passed through the Gates.