ISLANDS

For two brief weeks in May of 1983, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's piece entitled Surrounded Islands blossomed on the waters of Biscayne Bay, Florida. Eleven scrub-pine islands were surrounded by 6.5 million square feet of bright pink fabric. A three-year struggle, a work of art; a political drama interwoven with two other projects-in-progress; the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin. In the film, Christo discusses the work. "Most artists do work that they hope will last for one hundred years,
even thousands. But my projects are purely poetical gestures, like rainbows that appear and then are gone. They are the ultimate temporary: I come to a space and I disturb it to make people readjust, re-examine their senses. Then I leave. All I ask of them is to have pleasure, to be surprised."