CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE IN TERMS OF OUTDOOR PRODUCTIONS

Abstract

After the second World war, economical welfare which increased very quickly affected artworld. Particularly after the sixties, commercial galleries within the American-centerd artworld turned into an important actor that formed the art. This transformation which took part in the area of art showed itself with some productions which were against the dependence of many artists to the galleries. With Earth Art, Environmental Art and Land Art alternative productions to the galleries and museums became prominent in the art World. These productions, also, show parallelism with adverse opinions to the existing system such as student movements, anti-war actions and feminist movements that arose against the political environment. These kinds of art works that were produced with anti-capitalist aims like other avantgarde art movements of the time, at the very beginning, seemed opponent to the system within the art world. With this point of view, through the out-of-gallery productions, Christo and Jeanne-Claude create their art pieces via wrappings, nature interventions and tremendous barrel structures. We can say that artists presented colourful and sensational examples in terms of the sizes of the art pieces, costs and production periods which kept the public busy for a long time. However, it will most probably be wrong to express that the productions made by Christo and Jeanne-Claude were only against art gallery. Even though their productions provides us with this data, the sizes of their art pieces obliges those productions stay out of galleries. Moreover, the feeling that those productions arouse over the audience stems from the notion of grandeur and wrapping the places and spaces which are difficult to understand. This situation puts this couple in a distinct position among the other artists who produce out of galleries.