Christo, Wrap In Wrap Out, perforated postcard strip, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, January 18 - March 2, 1969

For a period of 40 days, Jan van der Marck, the director of the MCA, allowed the museum to be wrapped inside and out by Christo. In his introduction to this accordion strip of perforated postcard documentation he says: "The Museum of Contemporary Art has been wrapped with 10,000 square feet of canvas tarpaulins.

The resulting museum-size package, a monument to the world of art, will remain wrapped for forty days after which the everyday exterior will again be bared.

With the whole idea of a modern museum and its usefulness is somewhat up for grabs, Christo's packaged monument succeeds in parodying all the associations a museum evokes: a mausoleum, a repository for precious contents, an intent to "wrap up" all of art history."  Size: 5.25" (w) x 8' (h)