The Museum of Modern Art Packaged
Christo
American, born Bulgaria. 1935–2020
1968
A scale model in painted wood, cloth, twine, and polyethylene proposing Christo’s idea to temporarily ‘package’ the Museum of Modern Art, turning the building itself into a wrapped sculptural object.
You’re struck by how the museum’s crisp geometry is softened into bulging, anonymous forms—pale fabric pulled tight and knotted with a spiderweb of twine so the architecture reads as a giant parcel rather than a building.
A key example of Christo’s large-scale, temporary interventions, it helped redefine sculpture and public art by showing how wrapping can reframe familiar civic architecture, highlight form and temporality, and provoke public debate.
Medium
Scale model: painted wood, cloth, twine, and polyethylene
Dimensions
16 x 48 1/8 x 24 1/8" (40.3 x 122 x 61 cm) including base
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of D. and J. de Menil
Accession
868.1968
Palette
Exhibitions
