“I often say, ‘Our work is a scream of freedom’.”

—Christo

Executed in 1963, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped Package embodies a visual and conceptual exploration, turning a modestly-sized object into a nuanced meditation on concealment, identity and revelation. At first glance, the viewer encounters a tightly bundled object enveloped in rugged, dark cloth and bound meticulously with ordinary, coarse rope. Its simplicity and raw materiality immediately draw the eye, accentuating the object's enigmatic presence. The texture, distinctly tactile and deliberately coarse, emphasises the physicality of the wrapping, elevating it from mundane objecthood to pure, sensual sculptural form. A highly significant early example of the revolutionary technique that would underpin the breadth of the artists’ practice, Package is a work, shrouded in mystery, that resists and denies interpretation.

Christo began his wrapping experiments in 1958, shortly after escaping Bulgaria as a young refugee hidden in the back of a truck. What started as a practical act of wrapping his belongings was initially interpreted by some as a reference to mummification. However, his goal was not to preserve but to dematerialise, removing both practical and symbolic meaning to create something ambiguous. The act of wrapping is shared by the couple, possibly reflecting Christo’s personal history of displacement and Jeanne-Claude’s shared experience of uprootedness during wartime Europe. Both conceptually and physically, the work is as much about concealment as it is about openness. While the wrapping hides the contents of the Package, it also intrinsically invites engagement, prompting viewers to project their thoughts onto what remains unseen and to participate intimately in the work's interpretation.

This work parallels and reflects the artistic explorations happening internationally at that time, influenced notably by Jean Dubuffet's Texturologies and Jackson Pollock's expressive drip paintings, both of which Christo and Jeanne-Claude encountered in Paris in 1959. Their passion was primarily directed toward objects as physical presences, concerned chiefly with their textures, shapes and forms rather than explicit symbolic or visual meanings. In a similar way, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s emphasis on simple materials underscores their intentional ‘poverty of means’, highlighting the accessibility and democratic nature of this artistic approach. Rather than employing traditional sculpture's permanence and immobility, the couple insisted on the mobility, ephemerality and conceptual flexibility of the wrapped form. For them, it carried no explicit political message; instead, it evoked a distinctly personal, introspective response. Viewers are left to ponder the hidden contents, questioning whether they might be playful, puzzling or even unsettling. Ultimately, Christo's and Jeanne Claude’s wrapped Package encapsulates their belief in art as an intimate yet universally resonant form of dialogue, making it both historically and aesthetically significant within their celebrated oeuvre.