1

The Wrapped Reichstag, 1995: Art, Dialogic

Communities and Everyday Life

Theory & Event Journal 1997 Manfred J. Enssle
and Bradley J. Macdonald



I want to get beyond the very limited and extremely specialized conception of art-
-I want to get beyond the museum, the gallery, and generally what is deemed normal in
art today.

--Christo 1

The problem is to actually possess the community of dialogue and the game with
time which have been represented by poetico-artistic works.

1. --Guy Debord 2






On June 25, 1995, a team of workers supervised by Christo and Jeanne-
Claude completed the artists' latest project. Formally called "Wrapped
Reichstag, Berlin 1971-95," the project was a remarkable achievement. As a
work of art, it transformed Germany's 100 year-old (and temporarily vacant)
parliamentary building and its surrounding space. As a public event, the
wrapped Reichstag posed a challenge to the cultural imagination of all who
came to view it.

2. Visually, the wrap reconfigured and elided the large, neoclassical (and not
always well-loved) structure which stood, in Christo's words, like a "lonely
monolith" 3 at the end of a large, grassy, open area between the Brandenburg
Gate and the Spree river. The project had taken years of planning, months of
preparation and many weeks of construction. Now the formidable old structure
stood cloaked by 100,000 square meters of silver-colored polypropylene fabric
held in place by 15,600 meters of blue rope. Importantly, Christo and Jeanne-
Claude limited the aesthetic and public life of the Wrapped Reichstag to two
weeks. In this brief period, some 5 million visitors from Germany and abroad
experienced the artists' visual challenge. To what extent, in Debord's sense, did
this artistic spectacle escape its aesthetic representational status and engender
both a "game with time" and a "community of dialogue"?



2
3. As a game with time, the wrapped Reichstag invited two ways of seeing.
First, the wrap's temporal brevity accentuated the fundamental impermanence
and ephemerality of Christo's conception of cultural praxis--one that defines his
oeuvre. The work clearly challenged the timeless character typically associated
with bourgeois "museum art": here was a fleeting and ephemeral act that
deconstructed any aspiration toward immortal, auratic forms of culture. 4
Second, by intervening in a particular context and space of German life, albeit
briefly, the work of art sparked memories of, and discursive practices related to,
numerous historical sedimentations associated both with the Reichstag and the
German past. 5 It was a "game with time" both as an aesthetic event and as a
cultural--indeed historical and political--intervention.

4.

Moreover, the wrapped Reichstag also engendered "a community of
dialogue" in several important and interrelated ways. The project's very scale
and immediacy, as well as the media attention given to it, invited a fresh
dialogue on the nature of art. The artists' singular intervention in German
everyday life not only stimulated "aesthetic" deliberations, but also kindled
discourses on countless issues pertinent to contemporary German life. In short,
the project was a wide-ranging Gedankenanstoss--a stimulus to thinking about
art, culture and politics.


5.

To be sure, the resultant public discourses did not progress toward a
coherent dialogic telos: while focussed on the aesthetic event, participants were
not necessarily impelled toward consensus and mutual insight. Instead, their
discursive practices became increasingly decentered and open, eventually
creating a multiplicity of perspectives and subject positions. As Christo had
anticipated (undoubtedly drawing on his experience with prior projects), the
conscious injection of beauty and aesthetic form into everyday life fostered
frequent suspensions of normal discursive practices and themes, in the process
opening up new possibilities in thought and action. The artists' work, as he had
noted in an interview in 1994, "triggers strong feelings so that humans are
momentarily relieved from their everyday miseries. Instead of discussing
unemployment, strikes, and the problems of foreigners, they discuss values like
dignity, beauty, aesthetics and history." In the process, he concluded, they were
offered a "stimulating distraction from the trivial troubles of the everyday." 6 By
suspending its audience from the normative discourses of ordinary everyday
life, the Wrapped Reichstag initiated a unique politics characterized by new
intellectual and affective practices.







3

Games With Time


[The wrapping of the Reichstag] is not an easy project; it means
confrontation and animated controversy and a sharpening of the senses.

--Christo 7

Die Geschichte wird enthllt, wenn der Reichstag verhllt wird.

--Heribert Scharrenbroich (CDU/CSU) 8

The expression of history in things is no other than that of past torment.

--Theodor Adorno 9



6.

A opening move in the aesthetic game with time came in August, 1971,
when Michael Cullen, an American living in Berlin, sent Christo and Jeanne-
Claude a postcard of the Reichstag, suggesting that it be wrapped. Cullen did
not know his correspondents personally, but he knew--and greatly appreciated--
the artists' long preoccupation with the aesthetic effects of wrapping large and
small objects. Within weeks, Jeanne-Claude and Christo responded, indicating
their interest in the proposal.
7.

Cullen later suggested that Christo, born in 1935, may have had a native
Bulgarian's unique interest in the Reichstag. For in the wake of the fateful
Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, the Nazi round-up and trial of domestic and
foreign communists purportedly implicated had also included the prominent
Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitroff. Dimitroff's self-defense at the trial was
decidedly clever--he managed to question and infuriate Hermann Gring
himself. Fortunately for Dimitroff, he was soon released and later rose to
political prominence in postwar Bulgaria. His story became widely known in the
Balkan country, possibly influencing the young Christo. 10
8.

Years later, in an interview in 1986, Christo not only mentioned Dimitroff,
but also conceded that the Reichstag project was indeed "so much more
inspirational" given "my links with Eastern Europe. . ." 11 Yet, reflecting
subsequent layers of personal experience and the new political and historical
challenges posed by the very space of the proposed project itself, Christo's
adult representation of his motives was more nuanced. His very first one-man
exhibition, he recalled, had been in Cologne in 1961, and he had later made
friends in West Germany. Perhaps more significantly, having fled the Soviet
orbit in 1957, he became deeply troubled by the erection of the Berlin wall in
4
1961. Indeed, his immediate artistic statement in response to the Wall was the
"Iron Curtain Wall of Oil Barrels, 1961-62," a temporary construct of 240 oil
barrels across the Rue Visconti in Paris.


9.

When Cullen's suggestion arrived in August of 1971, the artists were
hard at work on the "Valley Curtain" project in rural Colorado. They were
searching for an urban project and wanted, as Christo recalled, to "use a focal
point in a city and temporarily transform it in my way." 12 He knew, of course,
that the Reichstag, located at a troublesome intersection of East and West
Berlin, was a volatile urban focal point. Thus, aside from the strictly aesthetic
issues associated with such a project, wrapping the Reichstag would also allow
him, as he later recounted, to intervene in the "extraordinary history" that clung
to this building and its surrounding urban space. To be sure, both building and
space initially embodied historical and political meanings associated with the
Cold War, but these would subsequently give way to contemporary meanings
linked to the unification of Germany. 13 As Christo emphasized three years
before the fall of the Berlin wall, he hoped to explore "all the interrelations" 14
that would arise from the multifarious historical intimations associated with the
Reichstag. After the wall fell in 1989, Christo saw a structure "rich in content"
and allowing "so many interpretations." 15 All these considerations kept the
artists' clinging to the hope of the project's completion with great persistence--a
persistence which would ultimately impress both supporters and detractors
alike.
10.

By the Spring of 1972, the first drawings of the "Wrapped Reichstag,
Project for Berlin" were completed. Interestingly enough, Christo had originally
entertained running a miles-long fence along the Berlin wall. But the fence's
restricted visibility to one side of the confining presence of the wall violated his
notion of democratic art. 16 To be sure, the idea of a fence was soon realized
as a strictly aesthetic notion in the "Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin
Counties, California" project (completed in 1976). In the setting of Berlin,
however, it was clearly inappropriate: "[I]t wasn't doing anything to engage the
East Germans on the other side of the Wall. . . ." 17
11.

Christo's vigorous commitment to public engagement, "confrontation,"
and "animated controversy" had deep roots. In his own words, he was "strongly
influenced" by the early Soviet constructivists, and particularly their commitment
to taking art "out of the museums [and] into the streets and plazas. . ." 18 To a
considerable extent, the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude may also be seen
as part of the "new genre of public art." 19 In the words of Patricia Phillips, the
intention of such art is "not to create permanent objects for presentation in
traditionally accepted public places, but, instead, to assist in the construction of
a public--to encourage, through actions, ideas, and interventions, a participatory
audience where none seemed to exist." 20 This participatory ethic invariably
implies confronting and engaging local communities and authorities from the
5
beginning of a project's conception to its completion. And because this practice
is intrinsic to the artists' work, an extensive "campaign of persuasion" 21 of
citizens and public officials in the affected communities has typically preceded
the construction of the Christos' public art. Indeed, as the artists agreed in an
interview in 1993, the dialogue with local communities was both an integral and
enriching part of their aesthetic practice: "From Japanese farmers to German
politicians, from deep sea biologists to construction engineers [and] ecologists--
[we] would not want to miss the unbelievable multiplicity of experiences,
information, human relations, and experiences with nature throughout the
world." 22
12.

But while authorities in Colorado, California, Missouri, Florida and Paris
had sanctioned other projects by the artists throughout the 1970s and 1980s,
the response of regnant West German authorities to the Wrapped Reichstag
project remained negative throughout these decades. The reasons for three
separate German vetoes of the proposed project were complex, but they were
never due to any lack of lobbying zeal by Jeanne-Claude and Christo. Bent on
engaging the Germans and winning their support, the artists visited Germany 54
times between 1976 and 1995. In addition, Christo created countless drawings
of the Wrapped Reichstag, and the artists engaged in numerous meetings with
German politicians and citizens. In 1987, they were supported by lobbying
efforts that ultimately gathered 70,000 signatures on behalf of the project.
Nevertheless, all of these efforts resulted in rejections by three German
presidents of the Bundestag (the near-final authorities in such matters) in 1977,
1981, and 1987. 23
13.

In the end, however, this particular game with time was not lost.
Historical and political developments soon favored the Christos' Wrapped
Reichstag. In 1988, Rita Sssmuth, a supporter of the project, became
president of the Bundestag. In November, 1989, the Berlin wall fell; a year later
Germany unified, and in 1991 Berlin was voted the seat of Germany's future
government. The Reichstag, which had stood virtually empty through much of
the postwar period, required reconstruction before becoming a central edifice of
Germany's new governmental quarters. Until this reconstruction commenced,
the building was effectively available for the artists' project. In light of these
developments, the Reichstag project began to assume new meanings. No
longer so prominently a symbol for what Adorno had called "past torment," the
Reichstag and the project now could embody the fresh hopes and fears of a
united Germany.
14.

Christo fully understood these developments, voicing his satisfaction that
the project had not been realized before 1989. The building would have seemed
like a "mausoleum and our project would have fallen subject to the rhetoric of
the Cold War." 24 Yet the final authority to sanction or reject the "Wrapped
Reichstag" now lay with Germany's recently-united parliament, the Bundestag
in Bonn. The debate in the Bundestag would exhibit the dialogic and discursive
dimensions elicited by the project, showing the remarkable extent to which the
6
artists' project had triggered discussions on a host of artistic, political, economic
and cultural issues.
15.

An early, evidently unnoticed, ironic note attended the hour-long
parliamentary debate of February 25, 1994 on the "Wrapped Reichstag." 25
Both the chief parliamentary proponent of the project, Peter Conradi (SPD) and
the chief opponent, Wolfgang Schuble (CDU/CSU), initially denied that the
project's artistic merits were the central issue. Art was not subject to majority
votes, Conradi proclaimed to much bipartisan applause. Thereupon, however,
he promptly cited two decidedly aesthetic reasons why the artists' project should
be sanctioned. First, the wrap's temporary estrangement of the building opened
the mind to different, sharper aesthetic perceptions: it would mean Erkenntnis
durch Verfremdung (knowledge through estrangement). Second, the wrapping
of people and objects was, after all, a prominent theme of art history; valued
gifts became more, and not less, valuable when wrapped. A supportive Green
Party spokesman later noted the reverent wrappings practiced in Catholic and
Jewish religious ceremonies.
16.

But before turning to more practical and political considerations, Conradi
injected another, decidedly theoretical, justification. The temporality of the wrap,
he noted, brought the transitoriness of life into human consciousness, and its
reproduction in the media would engender cultural memories very much like
those associated with Christo's earlier projects in California and Paris. He then
offered several practical reasons for welcoming the project: it cost the taxpayer
nothing, created employment, and represented a fitting sign for the new
beginnings in Berlin. Moreover, the artists' remarkable perseverance--their
energetic pursuit of their vision for over 20 years--deserved admiration. And,
finally, as opposed to the recent images of violence against foreigners reflected
by the events in Rostock, Moelln, Solingen and Hoyerswerda, the Wrapped
Reichstag would send a gentle, better and more peaceable image of Germany
to the world. Echoing this latter point, Rita Sssmuth would later argue that "this
wrap is sending a message to the world: we are your partners and we have
learned an important lesson of history." 26
17.

Ironically, Wolfgang Schuble also commented on the aesthetic effects
of the artists' work despite his earlier insistence that it would be presumptuous
to decide on its artistic merit. Schuble personally respected the artists' work
and appreciated its aesthetic lessons. He made positive mention of the pink
fabric which surrounded the islands in Florida, the umbrella landscapes of
Japan and California, the giant curtain across a Colorado valley, and the sand-
colored fabric used to cloak the Pont Neuf in Paris. But, as he intoned, "the
Reichstag is simply no Pont Neuf." Rather, the Reichstag was a singular symbol
which represented the heights and depths of German history: from its balcony,
Philipp Scheidemann had called out the first German republic in 1918; its
(partial) burning in 1933 had given the Nazis a pretext to install their barbaric
dictatorship; twelve years later Red Army soldiers raised the Soviet flag onto its
roof to signal the downfall of the Third Reich; for almost twenty years the
7
Schandmauer (wall of shame) passed directly behind its eastern facade; and,
on the nights of the 2nd and 3rd of October, 1990, Germany's reunification was
celebrated in front of its western facade. Having thus partly portrayed the
Reichstag as the dramatic symbol of Germany's "past torment" (to utilize
Adorno's apt phrase) and partly as a symbol of certain positive developments,
Schuble argued that allowing the artists' project would deny the respect due to
such political symbols. After repeatedly characterizing the Christos' works as
artistic experiments, Schuble urged that no experiments be tried on such a
significant historical site. Moreover, shifting from the historic to the present
moment, he noted the current lack of trust in German democracy and its
representatives. Any such political deficiencies, especially if accentuated by the
potential polarization that the wrapped Reichstag might engender, should not be
exploited to further weaken German democracy. The dignity (Wrde) of German
history and culture must not be damaged by the Christos' aesthetic experiment.
27
18.

Despite Schuble's impassioned admonition against the project, a
majority of the parliamentarians endorsed the construction of the wrapped
Reichstag by a vote of 292 to 223. In a fascinating way, the debate--as a
"community of dialogue"--portrayed two dimensions of German democracy. On
the one hand, it revealed an almost classic division between "liberals" and
"conservatives" operating within the sanctioned political sphere, thus showing
the extent to which discussion was confined by ideological parameters and
institutional strictures. Most liberals (being currently out of power) had shown an
openness toward the project, while most conservatives (being in power) had
opposed any "experimentation." To be sure, some conservatives did not share
Schuble's fears that a critical dialogue on the German past would create
destabilizing political tremors. Heribert Scharrenbroich of the CDU/CSU, for
example, welcomed historical debate. After citing certain positive historical
developments connected with the Reichstag, he asserted that the project might
well offer the chance for fruitful historical reconsiderations: history,
Scharrenbroich concluded, would be beneficially unwrapped as the Reichstag
was being wrapped.
19.

On the other hand, the debate exhibited the readiness by a newly
reconfigured German democracy to address issues of art, and in the process to
confront unknown and unanticipated questions concerning Germany's past and
present political culture. More than a year later, Jeanne-Claude stated that what
they had learned was "that Germany is truly a democratic country." 28 She
might well have added that the construction and completion of the "Wrapped
Reichstag"--and its reception by diverse publics--would expand democratic
practices beyond the formalistic limits associated with an official political sphere
of the Bundestag.





8


Creating Communities of Dialogue



The work creates a participatory public. In some way everybody in this
intricate relationship is a maker of the Reichstag project.

--Christo 29

This is peaceful and good. The monopoly of power falls away here.

--70 year old Berliner 30


20.

Numerous practical and technical preparatory tasks delayed the
construction of the Christos' project for more than a year after the Bundestag
vote. 31 It was, after all, a major engineering feat. On June 25, 1995, however,
the "Wrapped Reichstag" was completed, ready to be viewed for the next two
weeks. In the ten days preceding its realization--to borrow a phrase later used
by Eberhard Diepgen, Berlin's Lord Mayor--the structure was progressively
transformed from a Bauwerk (building) to a Kunstwerk (work of art). 32 During
this final construction phase, the response of a slowly growing daily audience
was at first rather mixed. The earliest opinions offered by some forty randomly-
chosen viewers were at times tentative and mildly critical. "I am 60% for it," a
74-year-old Berliner (born in the Netherlands) opined on June 16, suspending
final judgement until later. 33 A 50-year-old woman visitor from Cologne,
although applauding the emerging wrap as a stimulus for communication,
pronounced it a Wohlstandsprojekt--the project of an affluent society in a world
of great poverty. But as construction progressed, and the general contours of
the Kunstwerk became visible, the frequency of both reservations and criticisms
diminished. To be sure, critical estimates persisted throughout the construction
phase and thereafter. Even harsh critics, as the writer Joel Agee also observed
as early as June 19, seemed "all [to] have smiles of pleasure on their faces." 34
21.

What had changed--and opened the door to new discursive possibilities--
was the perceptual and experiential status of the Christos' project: it now
intervened irrevocably in the everyday life of the audience. Its very presence
tended to displace the tensions created by so many earlier conceptual and
visual representations of the project. New mental representations, now
influenced by the impressive reality and beauty of the Christos' work, began to
amend previous depictions. For there was no longer any doubt, in the words of
David Galloway, that the "Wrapped Reichstag" was "astonishingly protean":

The aluminized surface of the building's polypropylene sheath responded
to every nuance, reflecting a shimmering blue when the sky was clear, a leaden
9
gray when it clouded over, flaming orange at sunset, yellow-gold when
spotlights where turned on at night ( 35).

22.

The Christos' project had escaped its earlier systemic confines. It now
boldly confronted its viewers, permitting--indeed inviting--discursive responses
that were far more varied, open, spontaneous and "unorganized" than those
voiced either in the Bundestag debate or the media. The primary datum, of
course, was the emerging Kunstwerk itself. Its presence at the edge of the
Tiergarten--a space once labelled "almost magnetic [and] metaphysical" by
Christo 36--not only dominated the surrounding cityscape but also prompted
diverse perceptual images in the minds of many visitors.
23.

Notably, the aesthetic judgments proffered by members of the growing
audience were typically and remarkably tolerant and deferential. To most
visitors, art was "a matter of personal opinion." They volunteered occasional
metaphors and phrases of praise and (more infrequently) condemnation for the
project, but few ventured beyond shorthand characterizations. This truncated
discourse on art, when compared to the exuberant richness of opinion soon
voiced on other topics, was rather startling. Two interpretations may help to
explain the manifest reluctance to offer aesthetic judgments. On the one hand,
the very novelty and visual ambiguity of the art work may have militated against
any discursive rendering. "One stands in front of it almost unable to speak," a
42-year-old dental assistant from Berlin exclaimed on June 25th. On the other
hand, the lack of conceptual and verbal tools to formulate artistic judgments
possibly prevented articulate evaluations. Two policemen in their twenties, for
example, frankly conceded that they hesitated to comment because of their lack
of education in art.
24.

Nevertheless, on being repeatedly confronted by the eloquent criticism of
an artist named Martin von Ostrowski, most members of the audience left little
doubt about their preferences. Von Ostrowski, wearing a gold coat with black
lettering that read "Dies ist kein Kunstwerk" (This is not a work of art), was a
striking and intrepid opponent of the Wrapped Reichstag. He took great pains
almost daily to condemn the project as being "monumental" and "pure kitsch."
37 The audience members who heard him, while usually listening attentively
and politely to his admonitions, typically voiced or signalled their disagreement,
albeit in shorthand form.
25.

Concurrently, those who commanded the requisite language of art
history and criticism offered several revealing insights into the meaning of
Christo's cultural politics. A Berlin art professor in his fifties, a resident of the
former GDR, elaborated on Christo's place in a "tradition of provocation," one
that included the avant-garde aesthetic practices associated with Dadaism,
surrealism and, later, situationism. Another former GDR resident, an art teacher
in her forties from the Zwickau region, characterized the project as being, in
10
essence, a Zweckentfremdung (purposive estrangement). By wrapping the
Reichstag, the Christos' contested normalized perceptions while directing
attention to new cultural aims. Interestingly, she tolerated von Ostrowski's
suggestion that the Wrapped Reichstag was a form of kitsch, insisting that "[w]e
all need kitsch. Kitsch is bad only if it has power over us and manipulates us." A
third educated voice, a retired Berlin building engineer, aged 65, observed that
the unwrapped Reichstag had flaunted the preoccupations with power that were
inscribed in buildings during that age. The Wrapped Reichstag, by contrast,
"removes the brutal forms of that time period."
26.

Such articulate judgments on art, however, were the exception. More
frequently, audience interest shifted to issues pertinent to the financial side of
the project. The Wrapped Reichstag, after all, was an impressive edifice being
constructed within a capitalist life-world in which the audience participated.
Predictably, their interpretations and evaluations of the art work were
intermingled with, and were even displaced by, economic issues. After
fashionably dismissing the question of the project's aesthetic worth as a matter
of personal opinion, one long-time resident of eastern Berlin hastened to add:
"But a lot of money is being made here." Such acknowledgements of the central
role of money were frequent among those interviewed, and they extended to a
host of other economic concerns. The project's great cost, at a time when the
German economy (including that of Berlin) experienced serious downturns, as
well as the financial benefits to Berlin and countless businesses, were two
prominent matters of concern.
27.

Moreover, the project had also attracted its share of "commercialism."
Corporate interests, for example, exploited the spectacle: a West cigarette ad
pictured the unwrapped Reichstag while proclaiming "Verhlltes sieht man
besser" (What is wrapped, one sees better"). Small-scale entrepreneurs sold
their legal and illegal wares, while diverse Trittbrettfahrer (coat-tail riders) were
along for the ride, either peddling or exhibiting their talents and skills. Among
the latter, a young man clothed and painted grey from head to toe, who stood
perfectly still in imitation of a statue of a knight, stated cynically: "Christo is
financially good for me. He's in it for the money, and so am I."
28.

In fact, the Christos had taken great pains to remove some of the
constraints potentially imposed by capitalism. They derived no direct income
from their project, and they insisted on establishing a commerce-free zone
around the Wrapped Reichstag. To be sure, they had utilized the capitalist labor
market for the construction of the project and sold high-quality collages and
drawings in the art market to obtain revenues. But the utilization of labor and the
gathering of revenue ultimately resulted in an aesthetic event free from public
and private sponsorship, and open to all--not to mention that the event was free
of charge. Indeed, Christo specifically objected to the contemporary linkage
between "capital investment and speculation" and art. If self-financing in a
capitalist market was indeed necessary, it was necessary in order to obtain
"poetical freedom." 38 It may be, as Petra Kipphoff argued about earlier
11
projects, the Wrapped Reichstag in fact contested capitalism: the artists utilized
capitalist means in order, in the end, to undermine the utilitarian mentality of
capitalism. 39
29.

But while capitalist imperatives encouraged innovative financial
responses by the artists and also greatly preoccupied the audience, the
distinctly democratic voices which had attended the project since the Bundestag
debate now re-emerged. The final construction of the wrapped Reichstag
engendered a telling discourse on history and politics. In the Bundestag debate,
Wolfgang Schuble had feared the consequences of such a discourse, while
Heribert Scharrenbroich had welcomed it. Now, in the week preceding the wrap,
a Green Party member expressed doubts that the project would produce a
genuine re-examination of the German past. 40 What occurred, in fact, was that
the historical and political discussions raised in the free space surrounding the
project neither fully reflected the systemic imperatives of the official public
sphere nor ignored the manifest concerns of the German past and present. To
be sure, there were echoes of the sentiments voiced by Schuble. One middle-
aged visitor from Hamburg, for example, objected to the experimentation of the
Christos' art on "this building." "Where he is today celebrating his party," he
averred, "there was a wall. One should have more regard for this." There were
also predictable outbursts condemning contemporary politicians, reflecting a
Politikverdrossenheit (annoyance with politics) sometimes noted by observers
of the German political scene. 41 But the tendency to mime such systemically
guided political discourses proved to be the exception rather than the rule. More
representative of the prevailing dialogue were the comments of a young
American, who had resided in Berlin for several years. He had observed the fall
of the wall, and participated in several subsequent festive occasions associated
with the reunification of Germany in Berlin. Now he identified the way in which
the wrap contributed to the alteration of traditional political meanings. "Seeing it
as a wrapped building," he said, "almost takes away its political meaning."
Sharing this perception of the wrap's deconstruction of previous political forms,
a 31 year-old Berlin law student expressed the hope that the Christos' veiling
would enlarge the boundaries of the political, creating a political space that "is
less removed and more a part of everyday life."
30.

New and unexpected historical reflections and political meanings were
indeed triggered by the Christos' art. Many of them played into the dialectics of
remembrance and forgetting which the wrap metaphorically evoked. On June
17, the replica of a tank wrapped in white sheets appeared on the north side of
the Reichstag, across the Spree. Inscribed on the sheet on the replica's side, in
large red print, was the phrase, "Gegen das Vergessen" (Against Forgetting).
The wrapped tank--effectively a "counter-demonstration"--critiqued the fact that
the West German holiday commemorating the uprising of East German workers
against the communist regime in 1953 had been forgotten. The leader of this
poignant Gegendemonstration, Sigmar Faust, explained that his group had
nothing against Christo. Nevertheless, "without wanting to do so, [Christo] has
contributed to this forgetting." The victimization of East Germans, he believed,
continued to deserve commemoration. For on this day 42 years ago, an East
12
German dictatorship had cruelly exhibited its commitment to repression, and
Faust and his collaborators had greatly suffered from it. Thus, albeit in an
unanticipated way, Wolfgang Schuble's ideological articulation ofthe
Schandmauer re-entered the public discourse.
31.

Nevertheless, in the open and "unorganized" discursive space
surrounding the Wrapped Reichstag--one which both rested upon and prompted
human plurality--Schuble's and Faust's paradigmatic rendering of the "wall of
shame" was ultimately deconstructed by those with different life experiences. A
woman biologist in her 50s, who had also resided in eastern Berlin, expressed
telling ambiguities shared by other previous residents of the GDR. Emphasizing
that she and her husband, a medical doctor, had neither been victimized by the
East German regime nor experienced past or present hardships, she pondered
the new realities engendered by post-wall Germany. On the one hand, she felt
nostalgic about the former GDR, and puzzled by the new realities. On the other
hand, she applauded a social system that allowed an event like the wrapped
Reichstag to take place: it "brought people together."
32.

The implicit hope that the Wrapped Reichstag embodied positive
potentials was articulated more explicitly by other participants of the spectacle.
Of course, given the trials and tribulations experienced by Germans since the
Wende of 1989, such discourses of hope were couched in terms of
hypotheticals and dream-wishes. Expressing support for the Christos' project
partially because of his partisan antagonism toward Chancellor Helmut Kohl
(who had opposed the project), a 34 year-old nurse from West Berlin lauded the
"aesthetic as well as political meaning" of the project. He hoped that their
project would "mark a new political beginning," even possibly creating bridges
that spanned the social and cultural chasm separating "Ossie" from "Wessie." A
51 year-old woman also reflected on the way in which the wrap opened the
spectator's political imagination. Contemplating its utopian political possibilities
she noted: "One could imagine that something good will be decided in this
building now." What also caught her fancy and spurred her hopes was the
discursive, increasingly dialogic, context itself: she liked the "communication
that it has produced"--particularly between the generations.
33.

The many provocative human responses produced by the wrapped
Reichstag--aesthetic, financial, historical, political and utopian--operated in a
new context that momentarily transcended the earnest imperatives of much
everyday life. Indeed, the very qualities that Christo had attributed to the artwork
itself--its "sensuous, erotic, humorous" characteristics 42--soon began to
infiltrate the temporary free space surrounding the project as well as the
discourse issuing from the "community of dialogue" which the audience had
become. The English term "happening" was frequently used to characterize the
event, and the question of whether or not this was a Volksfest (with opinions
divided) intrigued many visitors. With such terminological characterizations,
people attempted to capture an almost circus-like experience: "verticalists"
descending from the Reichstag roof to unwrap the silver fabric panels that
13
would cloak the building, 1200 youthful "monitors" employed (in shifts) by the
Christos both to guard the construction site and to respond to audience
questions, diverse street performers--to say nothing of countless other
Trittbrettfahrer who contributed to a festive atmosphere. Whatever interpretation
was offered about the wrap, most viewers increasingly signalled a sense of
pleasure and enjoyment with the spectacle. The Christos' aesthetic intervention,
after all, effectively demanded the engagement, even co-creation, by all
participants, workers and audience alike. Indeed, it was the invitation to co-
create that had engendered aesthetic, financial, historical and political
interpretations; now, it also frequently produced spontaneous outbursts of
humor and irony.
34.

Nine-year old Clarissa, for example, was unsure about the art,
concluding that a pink wrap would have been more appropriate. Three
seventeen year-old boys, after questioning why an "American" was wrapping
"our Reichstag," added jokingly that their school should be wrapped. An African
resident of Berlin observed that fear would have attended a similar spectacle in
his home country, and went on to question such excesses by an affluent
Germany. As an afterthought, he exclaimed pointedly and with a smile: ". . .and
it is white." For a seventy-five year old Berlin woman, the wrap was a
Gedankenanstoss which prompted the thought that, with some exceptions, all
German politicians should be wrapped. Indeed, a number of people reflected
with delight that the Wrapped Reichstag counter-acted the excessive
seriousness--the Bierernst--so often found among Germans.
Conclusion: Art and the Politics of Everyday Life
35.

The Christos' "gentle disturbance" 43 in Berlin may have had more wide-
ranging effects than the artists--as creators--were able to foresee. The creation
of the Wrapped Reichstag had elicited numerous differing discursive forms.
Diverse communities of dialogue had arisen, with some showing systemically
constrained and guarded responses, and others exhibiting spontaneous and
unguarded evocations. At times, of course, there were also moments of almost
Heideggerian silence and reverent inaction as some people moved quietly from
the crowd to the building in order simply to touch the silvery fabric of the wrap,
and others sat silently in groups or alone. At other times, the wrap became a
canvas for visual self-display: people playfully danced before the lighted edifice
at night--their bodies purposefully casting huge and moving shadow figures on
the aluminized fabric.
36.

The wrap, therefore, became a free-floating signifier, beginning with the
Christos' authoritative rendering and moving to diverse popular reiterations.
Sigmar Faust's Gegendemonstration, for example, appropriated the wrapped
form to express grief, but a host of other, more playful, appropriations also
surfaced in the space surrounding the Reichstag and throughout Berlin. Some
individuals were anxious to see themselves wrapped (accommodated for a fee,
of course); pictures of wrapped beer bottles appeared; storefronts displayed
14
wrapped furniture; a postcard rendered a wrapped penis; and a cartoon showed
an unsuccessful bird's nest now vastly improved by wrapping.
37.

Such significations and reiterations were certainly predictable responses
to a festive and momentary aesthetic spectacle in a capitalist life-world. But they
also showed the remarkable extent to which the wrap--as Gedankenanstoss, as
metaphor, as experience--had deeply penetrated the interstices of everyday life.
Indeed, from the moment of its construction, the Wrapped Reichstag had
initiated a unique politics of everyday life: it had stimulated the creative
rethinking of countless ideas and actions normally taken for granted while also
providing the possibility of contesting the constraints of the organized life-world.
This novel politics of everyday life challenged various norms and proprieties; it
prodded questions about a life-world riven with socially required projects or
tasks; and, to some extent, it dissented from the performance principle of an
administered world. At least potentially, the aesthetic intervention of Christo and
Jeanne-Claude opened up the prospect of a more "liberated" everyday life, one
characterized by the renewed and revitalized intermingling of desires, hopes,
pleasure, play and intellectual speculation.
38.

To be sure, such a cultural politics was not likely either to initiate wide-
ranging social and political transformations or to extricate all individuals from
normalized discourses. Rather, the effect of the Wrapped Reichstag was more
refracted, diffuse and oblique. By briefly offering a lived experience of
alternative tactical engagements within the strategic constraints of the
organized life-world, the wrap set in motion diverse and personalized projects
premised on the expectation that the openness, dialogue and freedom attending
the spectacle could become an enduring part of everyday life itself.
39.

In one sense, then, the Wrapped Reichstag initiated a political practice
that would be recognized by members of the Frankfurt School, particularly
Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. In their view art, irrespective of its political or
ideological content, may provide the impetus for political change. In seeking to
find practices that might transcend the confines of an "administered" (Adorno)
or "one-dimensional" (Marcuse) society, both theorists came to view art as a
critical reserve for political transformation: "good" art works provide a means by
which one can revive those thwarted senses, desires and cognitions associated
with a life-world that typically militates against emancipatory alternatives. In this
respect, those aesthetic works most removed from social and political interests
(whether orthodox Marxist or liberal in nature) are the most political. 44 It was
undoubtedly in this sense that Christo disavowed "political prescriptions" in art
(in terms of form and content) yet still insisted that there was an intrinsic
"political dimension" to art. 45
40.

In another sense, however, the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude clearly
belongs to another tradition, one that he actually mentions, and--as noted--was
observed by an educated spectator of the event: the "tradition of provocation."
15
For while Marcuse and Adorno saw art's revolutionary potential as arising from
its purely aesthetic character, they assumed that any political possibilities could
only be realized when art stood apart from an oppressively one-dimensional
and administered everyday life. The aesthetic spectacle witnessed in Berlin, by
contrast, neither ignored nor fully transcended the practices of ordinary
everyday life. Rather, in the words of Christo, it played directly upon all of those
"connections" and practices that make up the quotidian. In doing so, it reflected
the tradition of the constructivists to whom Christo felt indebted, one that was
further developed by the situationists, and of whom Debord was an important
member. As opposed to Adorno and Marcuse, this tradition seeks to bring art
into the "streets," thus aesthetically reappropriating the contradictions of
everyday life for emancipatory purposes. To the situationists what was
important was not necessarily to create another great work of art: they sought to
infuse everyday life with the pleasure, creativity and revitalization of desires
represented in all good art. 46
41.

A similar understanding of cultural politics was recently advanced by
Jrgen Habermas. In a provocative riposte to postmodern positions, Habermas
critiqued the practices of modernist avant-garde movements (particularly,
Dadaism and surrealism) for assuming that one could overcome a "reified
everyday praxis" simply by opening up and making more accessible "highly
stylized cultural spheres." 47 Habermas, following a suggestion from Albrecht
Wellmer, argued that art can have an important political effect if it "is used to
illuminate a life-historical situation and is related to life problems." "The
aesthetic experience," Habermas continued, "not only renews the interpretation
of our needs in whose light we perceive the world. It permeates as well our
cognitive significations and our normative expectations and changes the
manner in which all these moments refer to one another." 48
42.

This, to a considerable extent, is what Christo and Jeanne-Claude had
achieved: the Wrapped Reichstag had certainly permeated cognitive
significations and altered normative expectations. To be sure, discernible
emancipatory reverberations did not result from the Christos' ephemeral
aesthetic project. For some people (including the media) the momentary release
or epiphany created by the aesthetic spectacle sufficed; thereafter life went on.
In this sense, the experience, like other "leisure" activities in the capitalist life-
world, provided little more than a needed respite, thus reaffirming existing
realities. On the other hand, new games with time and novel communities of
dialogue became possible because the Wrapped Reichstag opened a physical
and mental space of autonomy. In this space, human beings, if only opaquely
and briefly, could choose to practice and imagine--indeed celebrate--
transcendent human possibilities.






16

Manfred J. Enssle is Professor of History at Colorado State University. He has
published books and articles on 20th century German cultural and political life,
and is presently working on a study of the everyday life of scarcity in post-War
Germany.

Bradley J. Macdonald teaches political theory in the Department of
Political Science at Colorado State University. He is the author of a number of
articles on Western Marxism, cultural politics and contemporary political theory,
and is currently working on a genealogy of post-Marxism.





[Letter to the Editors]

Copyright 1997 Manfred J. Enssle and Bradley J. Macdonald and The Johns
Hopkins University Press , all rights reserved. NOTE: members of a subscribed campus
may use this work for any internal noncommercial purpose, but, other than one copy
sent by email, print, or fax to one person at another location for that individual's
personal use, distribution of this article outside of the subscribed campus, in whole or in
part, without express written permission from the JHU Press is expressly forbidden.




Notes

The authors wish to thank David E. Yust for the use of his photographs and for his inspiration during
the writing of this essay.

1. Henno Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? Der Kampf um den Reichstag. Henno
Lohmeyer und Felix Schmidt im Gesprch mit dem Verhllungsknstler Christo (Berlin: edition q, 1993)
64.

2. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Red and Black, 1983), Chapter VIII, # 187. In this
edition, there are no page numbers.

3. Andre Mller, "Es wird umwerfend sein!" [interview with Christo and Jeanne-Claude], Die Zeit
(June 2, 1995): 54.

4. Werner Spies suggests provocatively that Christo's ephemeral art also challenges a "culture of
planned obsolescence" which demands artistic permanence. See W. Spies, "Introduction," in Jrg
Schellmann and Josephine Benecke, eds. Christo Prints and Objects, 1963-1987 (Munich/NY: Abbeville
Press, 1988), p. 12.

5. For an interesting discussion of officially sanctioned "public and ephemeral art" by Berlin
authorities that specifically and intentionally directs viewers to the troublesome German past, see John
Czaplicka, "History, Aesthetics, and Contemporary Commemorative Practice in Berlin," New German
Critique, # 65 (Spring/Summer 1995): 155-187.

6. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 37.

7. Ibid. 31.
17

8. Deutscher Bundestag, "Verhllter Reichstag--Projekt fr Berlin," Auszug aus dem
Stenographischen Bericht der 211. Sitzung des Deutschen Bundestages am Freitag, dem 25. Februar
1994: 18280.

9. Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections From Damaged Life, trans. E. F. N. Jephcott
(London: Verso, 1978) 49.

10. Michael S. Cullen, Der Reichstag: Parlament Denkmal Symbol (Berlin: be.bra verlag, 1995)
243f., 285.

11. Hashiko Yanagi, "Interview with Christo," in Christo: The Reichstag and Urban Projects, Jacob
Baal-Teshuva, ed. (Munich-New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1993) 23.

12. Ibid.

13. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 30, 38.

14. Yanagi, "Interview with Christo" 23.

15. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 31.

16. Ibid 63.

17. Yanagi, "Interview with Christo" 23.

18. Mller, "Es wird umwerfend sein!": 55.

19. See the informative discussion of this new tradition in Suzanne Lacy, ed., Mapping the Terrain:
New Genre Public Art (Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1995). It is important to note, however, that the artists
prefer the term "environmental art" to characterize their work.

20. Patricia C. Phillips, "Public Constructions," in Mapping the Terrain 67.

21. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 26.

22. Ibid 60.

23. For a discussion of this "campaign of persuasion," see Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Verhllter
Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-1995/Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-1995/Das Buch zum Projekt/The Project
Book, Simone Philippi, ed. (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1995) 4-7.

24. Monika Zimmermann, "Wann verhllen Sie den Mond, Herr Christo?" [interview with Christo
and Jeanne-Claude], Der Tagesspiegel, Beilage (June/July 1995): B1.

25. The following considerations and quotations are taken from Deutscher Bundestag, "Verhllter
Reichstag--Projekt fur Berlin" 18275-18323.

26. Rita Sssmuth, "Eine Botschaft an die Welt," Stuttgarter Nachrichten (June 24, 1995): 20.

27. Deutscher Bundestag, "Verhllter Reichstag--Projekt fr Berlin" 18285-86.

28. Zimmermann, "Wann verhllen Sie den Mond, Herr Christo?": B1. See also Andreas Huyssen,
"Monumental Seduction," New German Critique, # 69 (Fall 1996): 187, who saw the Wrapped Reichstag
as a "monument to democratic culture rather than a demonstration of state power."

29. Michael Farr, "Christo's Last Wrap," Modern Painters, p. 59.

30. Manfred Enssle, Interview, June 19, 1995, Berlin.

18
31. See Cullen, Der Reichstag 294-298.

32. Diepgen's comment was made during the press conference of June 23, 1995, in the House of
World Cultures, Berlin.

33. This and all subsequent quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from interviews
conducted by Manfred J. Enssle in Berlin between June 15 and June 27, 1995. The interviews are in the
possession of the authors.

34. Joel Agee, "Wrap Session," Harper's Magazine (February 1996): 61.

35. David Galloway, "Packaging the Past," Art in America (November 1995): 86.

36. Yanagi, "Interview with Christo" 24.

37. For a brief discussion of the view of monumental art as "kitsch," see Huyssen, "Monumental
Seduction": 189.

38. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 64, 112.

39. Petra Kipphoff, "Der hfliche Sieger," Die Zeit (March 11, 1994): 5.

40. Elisabeth Altmann, "Die Befrworter machen es sich mit den Folgen recht einfach," Das
Parlament (June 16-23 1995): 2.

41. See the review by Gordon A. Craig of Jane Kramer's The Politics of Memory ["The New
Germany," The New York Review of Books (October 31, 1996): 63]. See also the able survey by Peter
Pulzer, German Politics: 1945-1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 180. He notes that the term
Politikverdrossenheit was proclaimed by the Society for the German Language as the word of the year for
1993.

42. Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Press Conference, House of World Cultures, June 23, 1995.

43. Christo used this phrase to characterize the function of their art a year later at a presentation at the
Temple Events Center, Denver, Colorado, November 14, 1996.

44. For example, see Theodor Adorno, "Commitment," in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader,
Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt, eds. (New York: Urizen Books, 1978) 318, where he notes: "This is
not a time for political art, but politics has migrated into autonomous art, in nowhere more so than where
it seems to be politically dead." The issue of the politics of autonomous art is dealt with in more detail in
his posthumously published treatise, Aesthetic Theory, trans. C. Lendhardt (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1986), particularly 320-369. This sentiment is echoed by Marcuse [in The Aesthetic Dimension:
Towards a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1977) xiii] when he argues: "The more
immediately political the work of art, the more it reduces the power of estrangement and the radical,
transcendent goals of change."

45. Lohmeyer, Eulenspiegel oder Revolutionr? 129.

46. For a discussion of their conception of cultural politics, see, Bradley J. Macdonald, "From the
Spectacle to Unitary Urbanism: Reassessing Situationist Theory," Rethinking Marxism, Volume 8,
Number 2 (Summer 1995): 89-111. As Mustapha Khayati, another prominent situationist, noted: "The
realization of art--poetry in the situationist sense--means one cannot realize oneself in a 'work,' but rather
realize oneself, period" ["Captive Words: Preface to a Situationist Dictionary," in The Situationist
International Anthology, K. Knabb, ed. (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981) 172].

47. Jrgen Habermas, "Modernity Versus Postmodernity," New German Critique, # 22 (Winter 1981):
12.

48. Ibid.