Untitled (Commemoration of “14, 130 Cubic Feet Empaquetage”)

Christo

1966

Cardboard box wrapped in brown kraft paper and tied with sisal twine, with paper mailing label and postage affixed

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Christo is best known for wrapping objects large and small, simultaneously obscuring them and focusing attention on them. In 1966, while he was a visiting artist at the Minneapolis School of Art (now Minneapolis College of Art and Design), he, his wife Jeanne-Claude, and student assistants created 14, 130 Cubic Feet Empaquetage (also known as Balloon Ascension) on the school's lawn. It was a large inflated parcel, 32 by 64 feet, made from giant research balloons filled with 2, 804 colored balloons, all wrapped in plastic and bound with 3, 200 feet of manila rope. A helicopter raised it 20 feet above the ground and hovered for half a