Sonia Kim.2: Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Surrounded Islands

I respond to Christo and Jeanne Claude's work because there are so many different avenues to their appreciation. I first experienced this piece as a picture in an art history book; therefore, I reacted purely visually to a photograph that exuded simplicity and grace.

However, as a project, I realized that there is nothing simple about coordinating the surrounding of several Miami islands with swaths of fabric and nothing graceful about working with bureaucracies and carting away preexisting garbage from the islands.

Due to the magnitude of the project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude enlisted the help of marine biologists, attorneys, ornithologists, mammal experts, building contracters etc. I see this work as a reference to the past when projects such as the building of the Great Pyramids required the cooperation of an entire society or even to the present organizations such as research universities and corporations which are expert at amassing manpower and information. However bureaucratic the construction of public monuments and the development of corporations may seem, I also appreciate the fact that Christo and Jeanne-Claude are using art as a medium to/of social justice (by constructing through only environmentally friendly methods and by creating a truly public piece of art). I think Christo and Jeanne-Claude manifested very modern thoughts (technology, artificial materials, information) in a way that adds to the environment, instead of something that is separate from (ie. the Internet) or something that harms (ie. cars) it.

Unfortunately, just as knowledge is a slippery thing to keep, the "architecture" of the islands was dismantled after a short period....leaving only other art mediums (photos, text) in its place.