The great and ambitious works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, their installations and their projects, were born in some way inspired by Man Ray’s masterpiece of 1920, L’enigme d’Isodore Ducasse – the first wrapping with a cover and some cord of an ordinary object (in this particular case a sewing machine) that history has memory of – and mainly teach us to re-learn to see, urging us to re-discover, to have new eyes. In ancient Greek, one of the most important words is «amazing», i.e. to be worthy of amazement, to be admirable.

The philosopher, he who loves and seeks knowledge, is most of all a man who is amazed, a person who feels amazement also as fear, dizziness, and disorientation. And looking, observing, means understanding. It is good to notice that still today, I understand can be expressed with I see. The vast installations and the variegated projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude – from the Air Package in Documenta in Kassel (1968) to the Mastaba (to be realized), from Valley Curtain (1970/72) to the recent Floating Piers (2016) on the Iseo Lake, from the Surrounded Islands (1980/83) to Over The River (to be realized), from The Umbrellas (1984/91) to The Gates (1979/2005) from Running Fence (1972/76) to Pont Neuf Wrapped (1975/85) and Wrapped Reichstag (1971/95) – were mainly conceived with the intention of hiding, completely or partially, or changing and decorating a place, a vast space, in order for it to be really seen, and understood again.

Proust said that the real journey of discovery does not consist in looking for new landscapes but in having new eyes. Hiding or changing temporarily to give new light, new life and vision to what has been taken for granted. Covering, for a short period of time, a monument, a shape, a presence, or a place, and to then relish it again. The highest etymology of a mainly religious word is revelation: to reveal. Taking off and putting on a veil, a wall, a covering. It is no doubt that the two main parameters that qualify a work of art and its historical significance are its beauty and its originality.