Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Surrounded Islands

This selection of drawings by Christo offers a direct representation of his and his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude’s vision for Surrounded Islands, the 11 islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay that they surrounded with pink floating margins in 1983. These multimedia collages combine textual and diagrammatic elements with Christo’s signature draftsmanship, where mark-making transcends architectural design and gives way to visceral expression. Beyond serving as concept drawings, Christo and Jeanne-Claude raised the $3 million dollars necessary to self-fund Surrounded Islands exclusively through the sale of drawings such as these, as was their practice for all their public projects. The works presented are among the invaluable images the artists retained to document this ephemeral work for posterity.

Complementing these foundational images is a selection of aerial photographs by Wolfgang Volz, the official documentary photographer for Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Taken from a helicopter, Volz’s photographs capture the completed project from multiple vantage points, presenting a panoramic, bird’s-eye view of the eleven pink islands floating within Biscayne Bay. For two weeks in May 1983, these perspectives were experienced by residents, tourists, animals, artists, and workers—by land, air, and sea. Despite the brevity of its realized form, Surrounded Islands lives on through these images and in the memories of those who witnessed it. By pairing the drawings and photographs viewers have the opportunity to compare the initial concept with the final work.