Christo & Jeanne-Claude at The Phillips Collection

I just returned from a lecture by Christo and Jeanne-Claude at the Phillips, where their current exhibition, Over the River: A Work in Progress, is currently being exhibited. And what an amazing experience -- it reminded me of why I love (and miss) working in the art world -- the enormous personalities and ability by artists to see life in ways that escape most of us. And within this world, Christo and Jeanne-Claude are singularly remarkable; I can't think of anyone else who compares to them in terms of the parameters given to their projects and the devotion they outwardly show each other and their work. They spend upwards of tens of millions of dollars (all earned through the sale of drawings and collages of Christo's preliminary plans), hundreds of skilled laborers and engineers, and decades of planning, acquiring permits, and educating people along the way about their work and vision.

And the result -- fabric installations or wrapped objects - exist for merely 2 weeks before being taken down, forever. And if they had their way about it, they would be deinstalled after just 4 days. Amazing to me -- all of that work, money, and years of planning for a fleeting moment. Nothing is permanent (save for a few precious sculptures in museums collections around the world and the aforementioned collages). It's truly remarkable, and I was moved tonight when Jeanne-Claude, in her self-deprecating, witty and pointed way described the process of how she & Christo infuse into their art, as an aesthetic principal, "love and tenderness", which we have for our childhood, and for our own lifetime, which we know won't last forever. So when she looks at one of their completed projects, there is love and tenderness for that work, which is made more poignant and powerful with the knowledge that in just a few days it will no longer exist. In contrast with the oil paintings and steel sculptures that occupy our landscape, these ethereal artworks are indeed "precious" and fleeting.

To the point that I've tried to make in these posts about my own perspective about art -- that when you define "what is art", it's not about the object per se, but about "where" is art. Art exists, in opinion, in the experience of viewing. When a person is moved by a work of art, or disturbed by it, or inspired, or puzzled, or delighted, or even offended, that is where art is found. Christo said something tonight along similar lines -- that their art exists not only in the completed project, but in the process of completing it, in the process of decades spent trying to obtain the necesary permits, and in the minds and souls of both the people who support their work and of the people who want to stop them. Basically, it's in the experience of it.

My two favorite works are pictured above -- Running Fence, of which the west end literally dives into the Pacific Ocean by 1/4 mile (knowing that the work continued beyond a person's ability to see it absolutely thrills me) -- and Reichstag in Berlin, because of the visceral polarity between the rigidity and formal structure of the building and the soft and sensual quality of the fabric.

This post is dedicated to my late graduate school professor and thesis advisor, Doug Adams, who worked with and absolutely adored Christo and Jeanne-Claude. You are missed.