Lot Essay
Christo began his artistic career in the late 1950s by wrapping everyday objects. Furniture, luggage, magazines, bottles and cans, for example, were enveloped in cloth or plastic, consequently obscuring the objects' original forms and rendering them functionless. In 1964 in New York, Christo began a series of store fronts, full-size architectural constructions that announced the artist's ever-expanding interest in working on a grand scale. The ambitious dimensions of later projects include the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris (1975-85) and, most recently, the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin (1971-95).
Yellow Store Front was "constructed expediently", David Bourdon recounts, "from old moldings, panels and doors which Christo, scavenging at night, salvaged from Lower Manhattan buildings in the process of being razed" (D. Bourdon, op. cit., p. 27). As in his series of vitrines made in 1963, he then lined the windows with paper and/or fabric to hide the "interiors." By leaving the upper portion exposed and installing an electric light, Christo draws the viewer's attention to "the denied function of display" (L. Alloway, op. cit, p. VI).
As explained by the art historian and critic Lawrence Alloway, "The idea of packaging now appears as the shielding of the internal space from the viewer. Christo constructed a store front, of a vernacular New York design, which confronts the spectator solidly. However, the points at which we expect to enter, either by looking in the window or by opening the door, are inoperative . . . Our perceptual and physical links are arrested as the invitation stays unfulfilled. What Christo has done is to turn physical space into psychological response, as the facade becomes a wall absolutely cancelling the inside" (ibid, p. VII). From this point of view, Christo's store fronts negate traditional associations of doors and windows as thresholds between the world and private life.
In another group of store fronts, Christo employed galvanized metal (instead of salvaged wood panels) to create more modern, streamlined versions. By contrast, earlier ones like Yellow Store Front evoke the memories of a by-gone era, when "Mom-and-Pop" stores still thrived along Main Street. Like Edward Hopper's abandoned street scenes, however, Christo's stark store front may also evoke a bleak mood of abandon and impending desolation. Nonetheless, the sunny-yellow facade and perpetually illuminated light may offer signs of hope.
Yellow Store Front was "constructed expediently", David Bourdon recounts, "from old moldings, panels and doors which Christo, scavenging at night, salvaged from Lower Manhattan buildings in the process of being razed" (D. Bourdon, op. cit., p. 27). As in his series of vitrines made in 1963, he then lined the windows with paper and/or fabric to hide the "interiors." By leaving the upper portion exposed and installing an electric light, Christo draws the viewer's attention to "the denied function of display" (L. Alloway, op. cit, p. VI).
As explained by the art historian and critic Lawrence Alloway, "The idea of packaging now appears as the shielding of the internal space from the viewer. Christo constructed a store front, of a vernacular New York design, which confronts the spectator solidly. However, the points at which we expect to enter, either by looking in the window or by opening the door, are inoperative . . . Our perceptual and physical links are arrested as the invitation stays unfulfilled. What Christo has done is to turn physical space into psychological response, as the facade becomes a wall absolutely cancelling the inside" (ibid, p. VII). From this point of view, Christo's store fronts negate traditional associations of doors and windows as thresholds between the world and private life.
In another group of store fronts, Christo employed galvanized metal (instead of salvaged wood panels) to create more modern, streamlined versions. By contrast, earlier ones like Yellow Store Front evoke the memories of a by-gone era, when "Mom-and-Pop" stores still thrived along Main Street. Like Edward Hopper's abandoned street scenes, however, Christo's stark store front may also evoke a bleak mood of abandon and impending desolation. Nonetheless, the sunny-yellow facade and perpetually illuminated light may offer signs of hope.