Christo - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, May 16, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    James Goodman Gallery New York; Leon Tovar Gallery, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    …For the duration of the temporary work The Pont Neuf, Paris, 1975-1985, Christo and Jeanne-Claude effectively transformed the context for viewing the bridge to underscore ephemerality and the power of creative vision over the stable and anonymous monolith of social convention. It is a highly subversive message, and yet the artists were somehow able to work around the conservative mayor of Paris to create it. It is perhaps a commentary on the difference between the United States and the more tradition-conscious Europe, that, in Europe, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have consistently chosen to wrap well-known public monuments (or common objects like oil barrels) – in effect appropriating their form and undermining their stability as images – whereas in the United States and Japan they have created abstract forms that interact more freely with the landscape as in Valley Curtain, Running Fence, Wrapped Walking Ways, Surrounded Islands, The Umbrellas, The Gates and Over the River.
    J. Fineberg, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York City, Hartford, 2004

257

Pont Neuf Wrapped, Project for Paris

1984
Pencil, pastel, technical reproductions, and photograph laid on paper in artist’s Plexiglas box (in two parts).
65 x 66 in. (165.1 x 167.6 cm) overall.
Signed and dated "Christo 1984" on the reverse of backing board. 

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $241,000

Contemporary Art Part II

16 May 2008, 10am & 2pm
New York