NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale to House Permanent Christo and Jeanne-Claude Archive

The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation has donated the complete archive of 'Surrounded Islands' to the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, which will dedicate its entire second floor to a permanent documentation exhibition opening in February 2025. The installation, realized in May 1983 in Biscayne Bay, Florida, involved surrounding eleven islands with 603,870 square meters of pink floating fabric extending over 60 meters from each island. The project cost $3 million, funded entirely by the artists, and was completed over three years, open for only two weeks. The archive includes over 40 preparatory drawings and collages, photographs, photomurals, engineering surveys, environmental studies, permits, letters, scale models, and pieces of the polypropylene fabric. Museum director Bonnie Clearwater stated the work 'redefined the interaction between art, environment, and public space.' Foundation president Karin J. Barkhorn praised the museum's dedication to community-connected topics. The NSU Art Museum joins other institutions preserving Christo and Jeanne-Claude's legacy, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum (with 'Running Fence' since 2008), the Reichstag in Berlin (exhibiting 'Wrapped Reichstag' since 2015), and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (which hosted a retrospective after the pandemic).