WRAP STAR TO SHOW, SPEAK AT RADFORD

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993                   TAG: 9302120322
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JUDY SCHWAB SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium
WRAP STAR TO SHOW, SPEAK AT RADFORD
Christo, the artist who surrounded 11 islands with pink fabric, draped a Paris bridge in silky cloth and who strung more than 3,100 19-foot umbrellas across the landscape in California and Japan, is coming to Radford University to speak about his work tonight.
No, he won't be wrapping the campus, but it's not a bad idea.
Christo's environmental sculptures are so famous and attract such vast numbers of viewers that the installation sites benefit financially from all the attention.
Making and installing all those umbrellas for the "The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and USA," took seven years and cost the artist $26 million.
It took 11 factories in four countries to produce the hardware for the project. The dollars that fed those factories and workers in them came solely from the sale of Christo's drawings and models for the project. Prices for his work range from $9,000 to $250,000.
The California county where the umbrellas stood for 18 days took in $32.5 million from the crowds who came to see the work, Christo said in a telephone interview last week. Because it was in a public space, viewing "The Umbrellas" was free, but people spent plenty of money on food and lodging and other incidentals.
The 57-year-old artist is coming to Radford University, where he will talk about his work. An exhibit of some of his preparatory art work for his large projects goes on display at the Flossie Martin Art Gallery on the campus Sunday.
Christo's first wrapped work appeared in the late 1950s when he showed wrapped bottles, a wrapped car and other packages in galleries. He rapidly proceeded to wrap larger and larger pieces until he branched out into the environment.
Christo explained his fascination with wrapping. The use of "fabric is very old in art," he said. He talked of Greek sculpture that captured in stone the folds of fabric on the human.
Fabric "highlights the general proportions of objects," he said.
In 1985, Christo wrapped the Pont Neuf, a bridge in Paris, with 440,000 square feet of sandstone-colored fabric.
The result revealed "the essence of the bridge," he said, as the fabric shrouded the details of its construction but showed the volume of the towers and major design.
Christo described the public environment in which he creates his work as "very rich with wind and rain, and also regimented with walls and streets. The art borrows the dynamics of the space," he said.
By comparison, he described the space of the art studio as "very clean."
Christo tries to spend at least eight months a year in his studio and minimizes his travel time to potential sites until the year of the installation.
The location and size of Christo's work makes it available to everyone who passes through it, not just dedicated art lovers who will go out of their way to see art in galleries and museums.
"You do not look at the work, you live with the work," he said. And this is what allows people to see the ordinary in a different way.
All this for a temporary work of art. Yet that is part of what makes his work exciting.

Christo lectures tonight at 8 in Preston Auditorium at Radford University. An exhibit of his work is on display at the university's Flossie Martin Gallery from Sunday through March 5.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB