Running Fence (Project for Sonoma County and Marin County, State of California). Collage 1975. Property of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation Photo: Charles Roussel. Used with permission.

This landmark exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s monumental Running Fence, the temporary art installation that stretched 24.5 miles through Sonoma and Marin Counties. The project became world famous, and is an iconic part of North Bay culture and history.

Through immersive design, powerful visuals, and firsthand accounts, the exhibit invites visitors to experience the magic and beauty that was the Running Fence – white fabric flowing across fields and cresting over hills to vanish into the Pacific Ocean – and to discover the remarkable 4-year odyssey that brought it to fruition.

Running Fence Documentary

Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin • 1977 • United States

RUNNING FENCE depicts the long struggle by the artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to build a 24-mile fence of white fabric over the hills of California, disappearing into the Pacific. Cost: 3 million dollars. At first, the idea must seem the limit of absurdity, for the fence was taken down as planned at the end of two weeks and now exists solely on film. There is a struggle between the artists and the state bureaucracy, who want to prevent the fence from being erected, even though the ranchers whose land it crosses want it. Opposition seems insurmountable.

Also available on The Criterion Channel.