Christo

The other exception where we did not at all restore the place to its original condition is ...
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In 1964, when we first arrived in New York City, I remember vividly seeing the skyline of ...
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It appears to be monumental only because it's art.

We don't sell technical drawings except when they are incorporated into a drawing or a collage.

Germany is an economic giant but a political midget, and with the end of the Cold War ...
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All our projects are like fabulous expeditions. The story of each project is unique. Our projects have no precedent.

And the most unusual and surrealistic place in New York City is Central Park.

And for me, the real world involves everything: risk, danger, beauty, energy, all we meet with in the real world.

And for every project, because it takes years, you can see the early drawings and collages as just a simple, vague idea, and through the years and through the negotiations of getting the permit, you see that every detail is now clarified.

Germany is an economic giant but a political midget, and with the end of the Cold War she has started to muscle her presence throughout Europe and the world.

Every artist in the world likes his or her work to make people think.

Because we do not sell photographs, we have no royalties on books, posters, postcards.

If some of our works are symphonies, then wrapped walkways was chamber music.

I escaped from my home country, Bulgaria, to Czechoslovakia and then to the West.

It appears to be monumental only because it's art.

In 1964, when we first arrived in New York City, I remember vividly seeing the skyline of Manhattan, and our first proposal of 1964 was to wrap two lower Manhattan buildings. We never got permission.

It is not only one person's work, it's really a partnership and collaboration during all these years.

Our work is a scream of freedom.

Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian.

It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice, each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but they are only projections of our vision.

The only place where people in Manhattan walk for leisure is in the park.

That could stay, not forever, because we believe that nothing exists that is forever, not even the dinosaurs, but if well maintained, it could remain for four to five thousand years. And that is definitely not forever.

People think our work is monumental because it's art, but human beings do much bigger things: they build giant airports, highways for thousands of miles, much, much bigger than what we create.

The work of art is a scream of freedom.

The other exception where we did not at all restore the place to its original condition is the Surrounded Islands. Before we installed our fabric, we had our workers remove 42 tons of garbage off the beaches of those islands. We never brought the garbage back.

We don't sell technical drawings except when they are incorporated into a drawing or a collage.

We are probably the only artists in the world who have a 2,000-page book on a work of art that doesn't exist. But in this way, these projects reveal their identity through this whole process. When I'm starting, I only have the slightest idea of how the work of art will exist.

Therefore we have to go over the fact that all human beings are afraid by what is new. It is our work to convince them that they will enjoy it, and even if they don't, to allow us just for 14 days to create that work of art.

You see, we are not machines and we do not have lots of ideas in a drawer.

We tell them that we believe it will be beautiful because that is our specialty, we only create joy and beauty. We have never done a sad work. Through the drawings, we hope a majority will be able to visualize it.

We have created indoor installations inside museums, like the Wrapped Floor at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1968, and not monumental at all by any standards.