Using salvaged building elements, Christo began to construct works in New York in 1964 that represented actual store fronts. This body of work emphasized two aspects that would remain central to many of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's projects: architecture and concealment. These "store" façades, many of them full scale and illuminated from within, reference consumer culture. The artist, however, teasingly denied access to the contents by applying cloth or paper to the inside of the windows. The Store Fronts, themselves receptacles of display, also reflect upon the museum and its exhibition practices. By the late 1960s, Christo and Jeanne-Claude had begun to wrap entire museums, thus obscuring those sites of display.
previous | next |