| Running Fence | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Christo and Jeanne-Claude |
| Year | September 10, 1976 |
| Type | Installation art |
| 38°19′4″N122°55′28″W / 38.31778°N 122.92444°W | |
Running Fence was an installation art piece by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which was completed on September 10, 1976. The art installation was first conceived in 1972, but the actual project took more than four years to plan and build. [1] After it was installed, the builders removed it 14 days later, leaving no visible trace behind. [2]
The art installation consisted of a veiled fence 24.5 miles (39.4 km) long extending across the hills of Sonoma and Marin counties in northern California, United States. The 18-foot (5.5 m) high fence was made of 200,000 square meters (2,222,222 square feet) of heavy woven white nylon fabric, which created 2,050 panels, and was hung from steel cables by means of 350,000 hooks. The cables were supported by 2,050 steel poles (each: 6.4 meters / 21 feet long or 9 centimeters / 3.5 inches in diameter) embedded 1 meter (3 feet) into the ground, braced by steel guy wires (145 kilometers / 90 miles of steel cable), 14,000 earth anchors, and without any concrete. [2]
The route of the fence began near U.S. Highway 101 and crossed 14 roads and the private property of 59 ranchers to reach the Pacific Ocean south of Bodega Bay. The fence entered the Pacific Ocean at a point about midway between the Estero Americano and the Estero de San Antonio, in northwestern Marin County. [3] The art project required 42 months of collaborative efforts, 18 public hearings, 3 sessions at the Superior Courts of California, and the drafting of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR); the required EIR for the piece was 450 pages long. [2]
All expenses for the temporary work of art were paid by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through the sale of studies, preparatory drawings and collages, scale models and original lithographs. [2]
Originally conceived in 1972 as Curtains for West Berlin to block the view of the Berlin Wall, [4] the project relocated to rural Sonoma and Marin Counties just south of the historic Russian settlements of Fort Ross and Port Rumyantsev at Bodega Bay in the Mexican bulwark of Rancho Americano. It is also said to have been partly inspired by fences demarcating the Continental Divide in Colorado. [1] Christo emphasized that he considered Running Fence to encompass its social, legal, and technical dimensions. [5]
An alternative location at Harmony, California for a 24.5 mile fence installation was scouted by Jeanne-Claude and Christo in 1973. [6]
The piece is commemorated by historic markers at Watson School near Bodega, California [7] and at State Route 1 in Valley Ford, California. In December 1976, the County Landmarks Commission, County of Sonoma designated the Valley Ford site (pole #7-33) as History Landmark #24. [8]
The largest remaining intact and continuous section of the Running Fence hangs below the ceiling of the Rio Theater in Monte Rio, California. [9]
Between April 1, 2010 through September 25, 2010, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence was on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [10] The exhibition comprised over 350 archival and related works and photographs, and visitors could touch the actual nylon fabric panels and steel poles from the original work of art. [10]
The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa has a permanent exhibit on Christo featuring a portion of fabric from the Running Fence. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip featured Christo's art and the Running Fence in 1978. [11]
The piece was the subject of a 1978 documentary film Running Fence by Albert and David Maysles. [12] [13] The film includes scenes showing the local response to the project, which ranged from excitement to resentment and active protest. Several Californians including Expressionist painter Byron Randall protested the piece on the grounds of both land infringement and lack of artistic merit; however others appreciated the beauty of the work and in the end the project was completed. [14] [15] [13]
Sonoma County is located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its seat of government and largest city is Santa Rosa.
The Coast Miwok are an Indigenous people of California that were the second-largest tribe of the Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of modern Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golden Gate north to Duncans Point and eastward to Sonoma Creek. Coast Miwok included the Bodega Bay Miwok, or Olamentko (Olamentke), from authenticated Miwok villages around Bodega Bay, the Marin Miwok, or Hookooeko (Huukuiko), and Southern Sonoma Miwok, or Lekahtewutko (Lekatuit). While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Coast Miwok word for people, Micha-ko, was suggested by A. L. Kroeber as a possible endonym, keeping with a common practice among tribal groups and the ethnographers studying them in the early 20th Century and with the term Miwok itself, which is the Central Sierra Miwok word for people.
Bodega Harbor is a small, shallow, natural harbor on the Pacific coast of northern California in the United States, approximately 40 mi (64 km) northwest of San Francisco. The harbor is approximately 2 sq mi (5.2 km2) in area.
The Gates were a group of gates comprising a site-specific work of art by Bulgarian artist Christo Yavacheff and French artist Jeanne-Claude, known jointly as Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists installed 7,503 vinyl "gates" along 23 miles (37 km) of pathways in Central Park in New York City. From each gate hung a panel of deep saffron-colored nylon fabric. The exhibit ran from February 12 through February 27, 2005.
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and landscape elements wrapped in fabric, including the Wrapped Reichstag, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Running Fence in California, and The Gates in New York City's Central Park.
Bodega is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Sonoma County in the U.S. state of California. The town had a population of 220 as of the 2010 Census.
Albert Maysles and his brother David Maysles were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films include Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970) and Grey Gardens (1975).
Events from the year 1976 in art.
Valley Ford is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in western Sonoma County, California, United States. It is located on State Route 1 north of San Francisco. Like all of Sonoma County, Valley Ford is included in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Redwood Empire.
Robert H. Hudson is an American visual artist. He is known for his funk art assemblage metal sculptures, but he has also worked in painting and printmaking.
The Gasometer Oberhausen is a former gas holder in Oberhausen, Germany, which has been converted into an exhibition space. It has hosted several large scale exhibitions, including two by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The Gasometer is an industrial landmark, and an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage and the Industrial Heritage Trail. It was built in the 1920s, and reconstructed after World War II.
The Museum of Sonoma County, commonly known as the Sonoma County Museum, is a non-profit organization located in downtown Santa Rosa, California. Its 7th St. campus comprises the historic 1910 Santa Rosa Post Office, a contemporary art gallery, and a sculpture garden. Between the two buildings, the Museum presents 10-12 rotating exhibitions per year and maintains a permanent collection of over 18,000 objects that document the region's rich history and celebrate local artists. The historic post office is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Watson School is a Sonoma County Regional Parks Department historic park, covering approximately 0.75 acres (0.30 ha), located about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Bodega, California, on the south side of the road, at 15000 Bodega Highway in Sonoma County, California, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The Rio Theater is a single-screen movie theater in Monte Rio, California, United States. The largest extant piece of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Running Fence drapes the ceiling of the theater's auditorium.
Marion Gray was an American artist, photographer, and teacher. A vital member of the Bay Area art scene since the 1970s, Gray's "work blurs the lines between documentation and art, and exposes shared approaches between artists working in dance, performance and visual arts." During her long career, Gray documented the performances and works of artists such as John Cage, Christo and Jeanne Claude, Merce Cunningham, Joan Jonas, Marina Abramovic, Meredith Monk, Paul Dresher, Guerrilla Girls, and many others. As curator Christina Linden explains: "her photographs, themselves powerful works of art, constitute an immensely valuable archive of the ephemeral artistic activity the Bay Area has historically fostered.”
Jacob Baal-Teshuva is an Israeli-American author, journalist, art critic, appraiser, collector, and curator.
The Floating Piers was a temporary, site-specific work of art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, consisting of 70,000 square meters of yellow fabric, carried by a modular floating dock system of 226,000 high-density polyethylene cubes installed in 2016 at Lake Iseo near Brescia, Italy. The fabric created a walkable surface between Sulzano, Monte Isola and the island of San Paolo.
The Hinds Hotel is a historic building located in Freestone, California in the United States. Built in 1876, the Hinds Hotel is a former hotel, antique store and plant nursery. Today, it serves as a private commercial business and home. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been named a California Historic Landmark and a Sonoma County Historic Landmark.
Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980–83 was a 1983 environmental artwork in which artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude surrounded an island archipelago in Miami with pink fabric.
Gianfranco Gorgoni was an Italian photographer who documented land art and installation art. His work was exhibited in a survery show, Gianfranco Gorgoni: Land Art Photographs, at the Nevada Museum of Art in 2021.
