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Christo and Jeanne-Claude are among the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Their projects have written art history. In advance of the projects envisioned, Christo has created limited editions.
Wrapped Automobile – Project for 1950 Studebaker Champion is one of these rare and sought-after editions. We see a car – and yet, in a sense, we don’t see it: for what we see is only the wrapping of a car, not the car itself.
This collage is made from a shape of a car body cut out of cardboard, which Christo has covered with yellow fabric. The fabric is laid in folds, with fine strings running across it to hold it together. Finally, the collage was then hand-hatched by Christo with a pencil. The wrapped car is mounted on a white-ground silkscreen, which suggests a three-dimensional space through its grid of lines and diagonals, but does not define it. On this background, the bright yellow wrapped car appears sleek and at the same time like an abstract object, like a sculpture.
With his wrappings, Christo draws attention to the wrapped objects and to the themes for which they symbolically stand. Christo’s collage Wrapped Automobile is a tribute to a cult car of the 1950s: the legendary convertible “Studebaker Champion.” Launched after World War II, this Studebaker was considered the epitome of a prosperous time – it became a symbol of earned prosperity and of a new freedom. Christo’s collage condenses this, brings it to the point.
It is a playful and at the same time serious work that recalls years that were so important for the further development of our society.
