10 - Christo (Bulgarian-American, 1935-2020)

Christo (Bulgarian-American, 1935-2020) Wall of Oil Drums – 1968 Project for the Museum of Modern Art, New York Collage, gouache, grease pencil, pencil, and photograph on paper 71 x 56 cm Signed and dated lower left Provenance: Serge De Bloe, Belgium The Robert and Suzanne Pannier Collection, Bruges Published: Matthias Koddenberg, Laure Martin-Poulet, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Urban Projects, ING, Brussels, 2017, p.75, cat.19 (ill.) Exhibited: Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Christo, 25 September - 15 November 1981 Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main, Christo - Projekte in der Stadt, 4 February - 12 April 1982 Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Christo - Projekte in der Stadt 1961-1981, 5 May - 30 May 1982 Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Early Works 1958-69, 8 September - 4 November 2001 ING Art Center, Brussels, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Urban Projects, 25 October 2017 - 25 February 2018, p.75, cat.19 (ill.) Serpentine Galleries, London, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 18 June - 23 September 2018 Executed in 1968, Wall of Oil Drums - Project for the Museum of Modern Art, New York belongs to a group of preparatory works conceived for one of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's most ambitious early proposals. Rather than envisioning a single intervention, the artists developed a comprehensive transformation of the Museum of Modern Art. The museum building, several trees in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, and an inflated air package were all to be wrapped, while a monumental wall of stacked oil drums would close West 53rd Street to both traffic and pedestrians. In the museum's main hall, a mastaba constructed from oil drums would bring the intervention inside. Like many of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's projects, these proposals existed first through drawings, collages, scale models and photomontages, works that were not merely preparatory documents but fully resolved artistic statements. Combining photograph, collage, gouache and pencil, the present work visualises the proposed barricade of stacked oil drums across West 53rd Street. The Museum of Modern Art would have become the first public building to be wrapped. William S. Rubin, the museum's Chief Curator, actively sought permission to realise the project, but the proposal could not proceed once the museum was informed that its insurance coverage would cease as soon as the wrapping commenced. Rather than realising the interventions, the museum presented an exhibition of preparatory drawings, collages, photomontages and scale models under the title Christo Wraps the Museum: Scale Models, Photomontages, and Drawings for a Non-Event (5 - 25 June 1968).