How to Purchase a Packaged Building

Architizer News

How to Purchase a Packaged Building

October 25, 2011

In 1961, the illustrious art duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude began seeking permission to wrap the German parliament building in fabric and rope. It took 24 years to convince the elected members of Parliament that this was a worthwhile endeavor. Finally, in the summer of 1995, the couple spearheaded the wrapping of the Reichstag in more than 100,000 square meters of aluminum-lined, fireproof polypropylene fabric and 15 km of rope, effectively neutralizing the historical and spatial expressions of a German landmark while creating their most famous “packaged and wrapped object” to date.

Years after the Reichstag has been wrapped and unwrapped, a foundation is now attempting to raise the close to $14 million needed to purchase the Wrapped Reichstag collection from Christo, as reported in the Art Newspaper. The costly initiative revisits an earlier controversy that ensued shortly after the installation was completed in 1995, a trial that reasserted a distinction between public and private. Read on.

[Photo via Strabrecht]

As we learned from Iconic Photos, a postcard company began distributing photos of the Wrapped Reichstag after its installation, notably without permission from the artists or the official photographer. The controversy sparked a court trial in 2002, in which the judge ruled in favor of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The judge remarked that although the event was in a public space, it was part of a special, limited duration exhibition, and thus by German copyright laws, the installation was not part of the public domain.

Today, the Wrapped Reichstag collection includes the artist’s drawings, collages, archive photographs, and even segments of rope and fragments of the very fabric that once covered the building. Upon the artist’s request, the 400-strong collection must be sold together, and there’s a whopping price tag to go along with the once monumental installation. It is interesting to see how the artistic concept of wrapping a public building has unfolded into repeated struggles for private ownership.

Original print of drawing for Wrapped Reichstag by Christo, courtesy of Roshkowska Galleries, Windham, NY