Christo’s Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014) features in the 2024 edition of Art Basel Unlimited, an exhibition platform dedicated to monumental and trailblazing projects.
Given his status as perhaps the artist most affiliated with these two descriptors in the history of postwar art, Christo’s ambitious proposals to wrap, drape, or stack at an architectural scale around the world wholly align with the platform’s aim to show artworks that are not only large but that transcend the typical boundaries of art making. Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon offers a rare opportunity to see up close—and permanently—one of Christo’s large-scale, three-dimensional wrapping projects, a work that is situated between his smaller wrapped objects from the beginning of his mature career and his massive projects that temporarily wrapped buildings and bridges.
Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 1963–2014
1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, tarpaulin with grommets, and ropes
59 1⁄8 × 160 × 60 ⅝ inches (150 × 406.4 × 154 cm)
The act of wrapping objects for Christo was about revealing through concealing. That was always the mantra.
Christo working on Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014), Basel, 2014. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photos: Wolgang Volz
Christo’s Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014) installed at Art Basel Unlimited 2024. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Video: Pushpin Films
By 2014, Christo could be counted among the world’s most recognized artists. Monumental projects that he and his collaborator and wife, Jeanne-Claude, had carried out across the globe since the early 1960s had garnered the pair much recognition and, as time went on, acclaim. In 2013, Christo realized Big Air Package (2010–13) at the Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany. Then billed as the largest indoor sculpture to ever be created, this work was a 90-meter-high, 50-meter-wide package of air that allowed visitors to enter its 177,000 cubic meter volume—certainly an unforgettable experience for those lucky enough to experience it firsthand.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Big Air Package, Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany, 2010–13, Oberhausen, Germany, 2013 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: Wolgang Volz
Sadly, Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009, and so memories of these astonishing successes must have been bittersweet for Christo. It seems the artist found himself intent on reliving some of his early memories of working with Jeanne-Claude. Rather than focusing on one of their internationally renowned projects, Christo found himself lingering on the temporary object Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) (1963).
Archival footage of Christo working on Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) (1963) in the courtyard of his temporary studio, Düsseldorf, Germany, February 1963. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Video: Charles Wilp © BPK, Berlin, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn/image BPK
The wrapped car in question was a 1961 Beetle that was lent to the artists by Claus Harden, a young art director that Christo and Jeanne-Claude met through Charles Wilp, who had filmed and photographed Christo wrapping women for Christo’s solo exhibition at Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf, Germany, in February 1963. Christo had been planning this work for two years with a Beetle specifically in mind. Not only did the artist appreciate that vehicle’s distinctive shape, but he also admired the countercultural notions associated with the “Love Bug.” As a Soviet refugee, he particularly clung to the counterculture’s emphasis on freedom of expression. Likewise, as the home of the storied Kunstakademie and the heart of the German avant-garde, Düsseldorf was an ideal location in which to realize the work. The discovery of Harden, an owner of a Beetle willing to turn his car over to Christo to be covered in fabric, was a fortunate turn of events.
Christo, (Voiture empaquetée) Projet, 1964, charcoal on paper, 14 ⅛ × 17 ⅛ inches (36 × 43.5 cm) © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation
Though Harden was willing to loan his car for the project, he did so on one condition: that the artist return his vehicle to him after the exhibition’s conclusion in the same—unwrapped—condition in which it was given. This was the first car that Harden (who was then twenty-five years old) had bought on his own—and his generosity only stretched so far. Years later, he would bemoan this decision as perhaps the most regrettable of his life. Knowing that their time with the Beetle was limited, Christo and Jeanne-Claude promptly got to work wrapping the sage-color Bug in tarpaulin and rope. It was likely driven by Harden (since Christo never learned to drive himself) to the courtyard of German artist Günter Uecker’s studio, which the artist-couple had commandeered as their own temporary workspace, where they swathed all but the car’s tires in fabric.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude with Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) (1963) in the courtyard of Christo’s temporary studio, Düsseldorf, Germany, February 1963. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: © bpk Bildagentur/Charles Wilp/Art Resource, New York
Christo working on Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) (1963) in the courtyard of his temporary studio, Düsseldorf, Germany, February 1963. Artwork © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: © bpk Bildagentur/Charles Wilp/Art Resource, New York
Wrapping was Christo’s signature technique; it was an integral aspect of the artist’s revolutionary practice throughout his seventy-year career. From his first wrapped paint cans to the posthumously realized L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Paris (1961–2021), Christo covered objects to intensify their mystique, as well as to invoke new ways to understand an object’s three-dimensionality and form. Indeed, for over seventy years, Christo embraced the act of “revelation through concealment,” as critic David Bourdon asserted in his 1970 biography on the artist. And though Christo had moved from wrapping single objects to entire buildings, in 2014 the artist decided to revisit Wrapped Car (Volkswagen) from fifty years ago, when he was in the first years of his career and Jeanne-Claude was still by his side.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Paris, 1961–2021, Paris, 2021 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. Photo: Wolgang Volz
Wrapped Volkswagen (Project for 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon), 2014
Graphite, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by André Grossmann, and masking tape on paper
8 ½ × 11 inches (21.6 × 27.9 cm)
Wrapped Volkswagen (Project for 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon), 2014
Graphite, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz, and masking tape on paper
8 ½ × 11 inches (21.6 × 27.9 cm)
Wrapped Volkswagen (Project for 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon), 2014
Graphite, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by André Grossmann, and masking tape on paper
8 ½ × 11 inches (21.6 × 27.9 cm)
Wrapped Volkswagen (Project for 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon), 2014
Graphite, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by André Grossmann, and masking tape on paper
8 ½ × 11 inches (21.6 × 27.9 cm)
Join Vladimir Yavachev, director of operations for the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, as he discusses the genesis of the artist’s work Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014), which Gagosian presented at Art Basel Unlimited 2024.
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