Christo, Running Fence (Project for Sonoma and Marin Counties, State of California), Collage 1976, © Christo, Pencil, pastel, charcoal, wax crayon, with collage element (fabric, staples, technical data, photograph by Wolfgang Volz), Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H.
Denghausen Endowment.
Christo, Running Fence (Project for Sonoma and Marin Counties, State of California), Drawing 1973, © Christo, Pencil, charcoal, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California 1972-76, © Christo, Photograph by Wolfgang Volz, September 10-20, 1976, Color photograph. |
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Smithsonian American Art Museum
Renwick Gallery
1661 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. at 17th Street
202-633-7970
Washington
Christo and Jeanne-Claude:
Remembering the ‘Running Fence’
April 2-September 26, 2010
The most lyrical of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s epic projects was the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76. The ambitious scope and enormous size of this monumental temporary artwork are hard to imagine even today. The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the ‘Running Fence,’captures the elaborate process of planning the work and the magnitude of its scale. It is organized by George Gurney, the museum’s deputy chief curator.
Running Fence, the culmination of 42 months of collaborative efforts, was 24-1/2 miles long and 18 feet high, with one end dropping into the Pacific Ocean. The work, made of 240,000 square yards of heavy, white nylon fabric, 90 miles of steel cable, 2,050 steel poles, 350,000 hooks, and 14,000 earth anchors, was paid for entirely by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Completed, Running Fence existed for only two weeks in September 1976. It survives as a memory and through the artwork and documentation by the artists. In 2008, Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired the record of Running Fence — drawings, collages, photographs and documents. It is the first and only major Christo and Jeanne-Claude project archive acquired by a museum.
“Seeing the Running Fence was a transformative experience,” said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director at the museum. “It was a fence that didn’t divide people but instead brought them together. The exhibition, the book and the related films recapture the excitement that still lives in the memory of those who saw the Running Fence 34 years later, and they reintroduce the work to a new generation.”
The collective archive of artworks and related materials includes more than 350 items, most of which are in the exhibition. There are 46 original preparatory drawings and collages by Christo on display, including eight large-scale drawings, each 8 feet wide, and a 58-foot-long scale model. More than 240 photographs by Wolfgang Volz, Gianfranco Gorgoni and Harry Shunk reveal the complex process of constructing Running Fence and the many personalities involved with the project. A sequence of 22-feet-wide high-definition images of Running Fence are projected at the exhibition entrance to convey to visitors the breadth and scale of the project. The exhibition also includes components from the actual project, including a nylon fabric panel and steel pole.
The museum has commissioned a new film, The “Running Fence” Revisited, created for the exhibition by Wolfram Hissen, who has documented many other projects by the artists during the past 20 years. It will be shown regularly in the exhibition galleries, as will Running Fence (1978), a film by the legendary American filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, with Charlotte Zwerin, that chronicles the unpredictable and ever-changing path that led to the completion of Running Fence and Running Fence with Commentary (2004, Plexifilm).
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California 1972-76, © Christo, Photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni, Joe Lepori, 1973-1976, Black and white photograph.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California 1972-76, © Christo, Photograph by Wolfgang Volz, Jeanne-Claude in cab of truck, Mid-August 1976, Black and white photograph. |
