克里斯托与让-克劳德，包裹德国国会大厦，1995年6月-7月
想要放下过去的错误，重新开始，个人希望如此，对一个国家同样适用。有时候，我们需要停止纠结于过去的罪孽，或者接受那段特定历史的终结。在1995年，艺术家克里斯托与让-克劳德尝试对德国的历史这样做，他们将柏林的联邦议会裹了起来。虽然这栋建筑建于19世纪，国会大厦身上却有十分痛苦的回忆。纳粹党于1933年掌权，靠的不是武力（虽然可能很容易以为如此），而是人民的选举。这让现代德国伤痛甚深。然而，1933年的选举，并不能证明大家同意这个党派直到1945年的所有政策，更不用说当时的所谓政府对于欧洲犹太人的屠杀，或是其军队在东线战场的所作所为。然而，选举的结果，确实让人担心这种共同承担的职责。
让-克劳德与克里斯托没有改变国会大厦，而是把它盖起来，然后又揭开，让人们看到它。他们为公众提供了一个重要的机会，可以重新改观这个国家与其最重要的政治建筑之间的关系。它让德国的议会重新回到其应有的位置。包裹起来的国会大厦，相当于世俗政治形式层面的洗礼。而洗礼就是一个标志性的时刻，说明过去的错误可以放在一边，一个人能够再次致力于美好的未来。一个国家可能意识到他们对于过去犯下的罪过的内疚，但他们还是可以重新上路，在这方面，政治艺术能够起到关键的作用。
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Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Riechstag, June-July 1995
The need to put past mistakes to rest and to make a fresh start applies to nations, just as it does to individuals. We sometimes need to stop raking over past guilt or accept that a particular phase of national history is over. In 1995, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude had a go at this task in relation to Germanys history by wrapping up the Federal parliament in Berlin. Although a nineteenth century work, the Reichstag had a particularly painful memory attached to it. The Nazi party rose to power in 1933 on the back not of force (as it might be convenient to believe), but of popular electoral success. This has traumatised modern Germany. Yet a vote cast in 1933 hardly entails agreement with every element of party policy up to 1945, let alone the actions of the government over the massacre of European Jewry or the behaviour of its armies on the Eastern front. Nevertheless, the election results are a fraught reminder of collective responsibility.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo did not change the Reichstag; but by covering and then unveiling it, they set up a grand public opportunity for renewal of the nation’s relationship to its foremost political building. It allowed Germany to give its parliament back to itself. The Wrapped Reichstag was a secular political form of baptism. Baptism is a symbolic moment in which past wrongs are put aside and the individual is rededicated to the future. Political art has a pivotal role to play in allowing nations to learn to start again even while they acknowledge their guilt for past sins.
