Choosing Contemporary Art

1960s Christo Exhibitions Firsts

Richard Armstrong, now the Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, talks about his first encounter with contemporary art.

 

In the autumn of 1967, I moved to Lake Forest to attend college. Franz Schulze, a renowned professor and art critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, quickly became a cultural pied piper for me and some of my new friends. He suggested we go downtown to see Christo’s “wrapping” of the new Museum of Contemporary Art. We went, we saw, and I never looked back. Contemporary art was my north star henceforth.

Exterior view, Christo: Wrap In Wrap Out, MCA Chicago. Photo © MCA Chicago.

Exterior view, Christo: Wrap In Wrap Out, MCA Chicago. Photo © MCA Chicago.

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