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Gửi lúc 23:02, 26/09/03

Tui dốt tiếng Anh, bác đọc đây xem có cái gì cần tìm không này:

Wrapping the Reichstag

The summer of 1995 saw the creation of a new, large-scale work of environmental art by conceptual artist Christo and his wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude. This time the Bulgarian-born artist wrapped the Reichstag, the historic Berlin building that is the once and future home of Germany''s parliament. Much had changed in the nearly 24 years since Christo first approached the German government with the project: The Berlin Wall had come down, East and West Germany had unified, and parliament had voted to reestablish Berlin as the national capital.

In late June, the artists—accompanied by a crew of approximately 200 construction workers, 90 specially trained rock climbers, and a team of more than 600 people to answer questions and assist with crowd control—descended on Berlin. Within a week they had transformed the usually grim Reichstag into a symbol of hope for Germany''s future.

The artists, assisted by their construction crew, draped the entire building in 70 panels of shimmery, sun-reflecting, aluminum-coated cloth. Each panel weighed nearly 1 metric ton. The construction workers and a team of steeplejacks secured the polypropylene panels to a 200-ton steel framework, which was attached to the building''s roof and exterior, tying them down with 14 km (9 mi) of bright blue polypropylene rope. The artists planned to recycle all the materials used in the project. The installation, which was scheduled to take four days, actually took six. High winds and bad weather held up construction and hiked the total cost of the project from an estimated $6 million to more than $10 million.

Christo is renowned for his wrapped and large-scale artworks. In addition to the Reichstag, he has wrapped entire islands in Florida, strung curtains through California valleys, and installed 230-kg (500-lb) umbrellas in California and Japan. According to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the point is to create art on a monumental scale by temporarily transforming a natural or constructed landmark into an aesthetic creation.

As with all their projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude raised the money for the Wrapped Reichstag themselves. The artists make it a practice to never accept corporate donations or government grants for their work. To raise capital for the project, they sold mass-produced conceptual drawings, sculptures, and other renderings of the wrapping. The Reichstag remained wrapped for nearly two weeks, from June 24 to July 6. During this time, an estimated five million people came to gawk at the structure, catch a glimpse of the famous artists at work, purchase commemorative paraphernalia, and observe history in the making.

The wrapping represented a new image for Berlin, which is undergoing a citywide makeover as it prepares to once again serve as the seat of the German government. In 1991 the government decided to move the nation''s capital from Bonn back to Berlin by the end of the century. As soon as the wrapping was taken down from the Reichstag, a $430-million project to renovate the future home of the nation''s parliament got under way.

The Reichstag has a rich, albeit tragic, history. From the time it was built in 1894 until 1933, the Reichstag housed the German parliament. In 1933 a young Dutch communist set the Reichstag on fire. Most historians believe the arsonist was a tool of Adolf Hitler, who at the time was looking to attain dictatorial control of the German government. Hitler blamed the fire on the communists and used the incident to drum up public support for the repression of his political enemies and the imposition of his dictatorship. The Reichstag was heavily shelled during World War II (1939-1945) and was nearly destroyed by occupying Soviet army troops in 1945. When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, the vacant Reichstag, whose eastern facade abutted the wall and a strip of no-man''s-land between the two sides of the divided city, stood as a symbol of the Cold War and Germany''s tattered past.

It was this turbulent history and a longtime dream to wrap a nation''s capitol building that motivated Christo to pursue the Reichstag project. Michael Cullen, a Berlin historian who had written extensively about the Reichstag and knew of Christo''s aspirations to wrap a capitol building, first proposed the idea to Christo in 1971. Although Christo was interested in the idea from the beginning, he could do little to circumvent Cold War tensions to gain the necessary approval, and the project had to be shelved. Finally in 1991, the time was right. The wall had come down, Germany had reunited, and the government had just announced its intentions to move the capital back to Berlin. Christo and Cullen began lobbying hard for the project, but many German politicians, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl, objected to the wrapping on the grounds that it would trivialize the tragic history and symbolism of the Reichstag. For proponents, the project represented a chance to affirm a symbolic rebirth of German democracy. In 1994 the German parliament voted 292 to 223 to approve the project.

Although the Reichstag remained swaddled for just two weeks, Christo and Jeanne-Claude think of the project in terms of its entire 24-year history. According to the artists, with every project, the process is part of the object itself. In the case of the Reichstag, they consider every piece of correspondence with the German government, every public debate, and every political battle as part of the artwork.

Soon after the unwrapping of the Reichstag in early July, Christo and Jeanne-Claude began planning their next large-scale adventure. The couple said they would like to suspend reams of fabric over the Arkansas River in Colorado. They also discussed resubmitting a proposal that had been dismissed earlier to install 15,000 fabric-draped gates around Central Park in New York City.

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http:// www.christojeanneclaude.net

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Gửi lúc 10:24, 01/10/03