Here’s something to think on: two people spent their whole lives wrapping up big things in fabric. Really big things. Bridges, buildings, islands. You name it, they wrapped it. They were Christo and Jeanne-Claude, husband and wife, artist and artist, mad genius and co-mad genius. The first time you hear about their work, you might think, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” And that’s a perfectly fair question.
The answer, naturally, is that it means everything and nothing at all. Which is probably the point.
Let’s say you’re wandering along and you see a building. Or is it a building? Sure it has the form of a building, a very big building. But there’s nothing about it that’s a building, it’s made of cloth, huge great sails of blue cloth. It’s concealing something, or is it a thing? Hmmm. You’ve walked past the site it a hundred times without thinking about it. But then, one day, there’s something there wrapped up in some intricate fabric, like a giant Christmas present. The empty space is no longer just empty. It’s a giant blue thing, sure, is it also art? It’s weird and beautiful and, well, huge, and you can’t stop looking at it.
This art is weirdly humble. It isn’t a monument. A statement. A contrived position to effect a gigantic shift in the consciousness of the art world. All wrapped up, whatever it is, is strange and beautiful for a little while. Then they’ll take it all down and leave no trace, like a glorious sunrise, or ice on the pond, brilliant and fascinating, transitory and temporary.
So nowadays, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s influence is everywhere. You see it anywhere art transcends the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture.
And here, debris netting.
One really ambitious arty idea, turned by sleight of hand into safety, protection, care. A really big idea with a practical purpose, something imagined by two artists and made real by effort, determination, graft and courage has suddenly become everyday and necessary, like, wow, what a good idea, lets wrap a building site to help keep everyone safe?
Now isn’t that a remarkable work of art?
Plumstead photographed for Lee Marley Group one of the UK’s leading brickwork, scaffolding and integrated façade subcontractors.
