Since 1961, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been developing a business model for art that sounds a bit like a hippie fantasy. The 73-year-old artists, married for more than four decades, act as their own art dealers; they work in the same studio in New York City that they’ve occupied since 1964; and they accept no royalties on books or films related to their art. The couple designs huge temporary projects that exist not in galleries or museums but in outdoor public spaces and which typically last for about two weeks each. As Christo explained in a 1983 interview, “The great power of the project is that it’s absolutely irrational. And that disturbs, angers the sound human perception of a capitalist society…to realize the work is beyond everything we can count in money and everyone will understand that the money counts for nothing.”

“Over the River: A Work in Progress,” a show of some 200 images and objects currently on view at the Phillips Collection, chronicles the development of the couple’s latest project, a piece that may be green-lighted as early as the summer of 2012—or, possibly, never. The exhibition showcases a mix of drawings, documentary photographs, and prototypes of project hardware. It also nicely illustrates how Christo and Jeanne-Claude proceed from vague notions sketched in graphite to town meetings in high schools—filled with PTA members, dour-looking men in camouflage, and bureaucrats—to field tests with engineers, cables, and fabric samples. The show bogs down in places—so many nearly identical drawings, so many photos of meeting and scouting—but it’s nice to have a show of living artists at the Phillips again.... Continued