Christo's Islands on AllMovie

This documentary records artist Christo's major wrapping projects and is one means for him to gain both recognition (which he has in ample measure) and funding. All of his enormously large-scale wrappings -- including those of buildings, trees, the Pont Neuf in France, and the hanging of a cloth fence for 24 miles along the California coastline -- involve almost as much labor as an architectural construction and are funded by himself and his wife Jeanne-Claude. His wrapping of the Berlin Reichstag took 17 years to complete. Featured here is his transformation of several islands off the coast of Florida into grandiose pink water lilies floating on a deep blue sea. But Christo does not just walk up with a full crew and machinery in hand and get to work. As shown here, his confrontations with august city fathers from Berlin, Paris, and Miami further illustrate the classic, head-on clashes between art and a pragmatic bureaucracy that can either nip a project in the bud or promote it.