ART'S COOL presents “Happy Views”, a journey into the heart of a private art collection. Join us today as we explore the Nestlé Collection! This art collection is one of the region’s key heritage assets, featuring works by renowned artists from the 16th to the 21st century. Today we meet Maxime and Vanessa with whom we will discover an artwork.

MAXIME: Hello. I'm Maxime, and I work in group marketing at Nestlé.
VANESSA: Hi Maxime. I'm Vanessa, and I work in the medical and scientific regulatory units in the nutrition department at Nestlé.
MAXIME: We’re here in the main hall of Nestlé’s headquarters in Vevey. We have an appointment with René Ciocca, Head of Corporate Identity and Design.
VANESSA: That’s right. Today, he’ll guide us through the building to discover two artworks from the Nestlé Art Collection.
RENÉ CIOCCA: Hello. I'm René, and I'm very glad to share two pieces from the collection with you. It’s going to be a bit of a walk—one is on the first floor of Building B, and the other is on level minus two, in the safe room where the collection is stored.
MAXIME: Let’s go!
VANESSA: Okay, let’s go.
RENÉ CIOCCA: Are you familiar with art? Is it something that interests you?
VANESSA: Yes. I actually visit quite a few museums—I love sightseeing that involves art.
MAXIME: Same here. I also practice art myself, mainly through photography. I've been doing it for over fifteen years, and I really enjoy learning about art that way. Practicing it, exploring it, and opening my mind to other forms like painting or sculpture.
RENÉ CIOCCA: That’s wonderful. It’s great to have two people with a real interest in art. I think it’ll lead to a very interesting discussion.
So, here we are in front of the artwork. It’s a drawing by an artist called Christo. It’s quite large. Could you describe what you see? That would be interesting.

MAXIME: First of all, I’m really happy to talk about this piece—I see it every time I come to the office, so it’s very dear to me. What immediately strikes me is the aspect ratio—it’s rectangular, and I also love the black-and-white composition, which speaks to me as a photographer. Those are the two things I notice right away.

VANESSA: I really like that it’s a landscape. It’s funny because it looks kind of abstract, but at the same time you can clearly see recognizable shapes. For example, I think there's something that looks like a farm. I enjoy it when an artist plays between the abstract and the concrete. Like Maxime said, the black and white is also stunning. I really appreciate that.
MAXIME: You get drawn into this landscape. It’s intriguing. You might recognize a barn, some hills in the background, and these beautiful lines guiding your eye from left to right across the canvas.
VANESSA: I also find it interesting that the bottom of the piece is very dense—there are lots of lines and detail. But as you move upward, it becomes empty, just white space. And at the very top, there are some words written. I haven’t read exactly what it says, but I like when writing is included in an artwork. Sometimes it explains the piece, or offers insight into what the artist was thinking. I find that really engaging.
MAXIME: Can you tell us more about this piece?
THE ARTWORK: Hey. My name is “Running Fence”, and I’m a drawing made in 1985 by Christo. I’m composed of two panels. One measures 35 cm by 243 cm, the other 91 cm by 243 cm.

MAXIME: What first caught my eye was how long the canvas is. Then I saw the name—Running Fence. It makes sense, because the most visually striking element is the white fence running across the dark grey hills. It stretches beautifully from left to right. Knowing that gives the image even more meaning.
RENÉ CIOCCA: The real work by Christo wasn’t just the drawing, but the construction of these actual curtains—this fence—that ran for hundreds of kilometers. You might know his other projects, like wrapping the Pont Neuf in Paris. His main focus was large-scale interventions in nature. The drawings were created to help finance the work. They were sold while the real installations were being built. So, the drawing is both an artwork and a means to fund the real, monumental project.
VANESSA: So the point of the drawing is to reflect human presence in the landscape?
RENÉ CIOCCA: Yes, it’s a dialogue between humans and nature, and sometimes urban environments too. He also did works in cities, like in New York and Paris. But the principle is the same; it’s about interaction with space, whether natural or built.

VANESSA: I noticed the word “California” written on the artwork. And this fence marking a boundary; it immediately made me think about the political situation in the U.S., especially the recent election of Donald Trump. Everyone remembers his policy of building walls against immigration from Mexico. California is right near the border with Mexico. So, for me, this landscape divided by a line evokes that issue.
RENÉ CIOCCA: You’re absolutely right. If you look closely, there’s a map at the bottom of the drawing. A line runs across it, almost like a border, stretching from the Pacific Coast inland. It’s a direct mapping of the landscape. And yes, it could absolutely be seen as a political border. What’s also amazing about Christo is the technical side of his work. In the center, you can see a technical drawing. Like with Pont Neuf, everything he did was extremely precise. He worked with large teams to make it happen.
Imagine how many people it took to build this fence across hundreds of kilometers. There’s the political and conceptual message, of course. And remember, Christo came from Eastern Europe—he knew borders in a very real way. But there’s also this fascinating artistic and engineering dimension: how to create something temporary, enormous, and fully integrated into the environment.
MAXIME: Now that I look at it again with fresh eyes, I realize I didn’t notice the fence right away, even though the contrast is strong. But the more I look, the more I project myself into the landscape. And yes, it feels surreal to imagine a human-made fence cutting through these soft, natural hills. It makes me reflect more deeply. And it reminds me of his later work, wrapping the Arc de Triomphe.
RENÉ CIOCCA: The more we know about a piece or an artist, the more it speaks to us. It becomes richer and richer. That’s what makes art so compelling. It draws you in and doesn’t let go.
JULIE ENCKELL: It’s fascinating to listen to you decipher the meaning of this drawing.
And it does, in fact, serve a specific function. This drawing preserves the traces of an enormous work that no longer exists, such is the fate of outdoor art, of Land Art. We could say the same about performance art, a living art form that people act out within a fixed timeframe. These works are ephemeral: it’s impossible for us to store them in Nestlé’s art repository or, say, in a museum! Thankfully, we do have drawings, annotations, sketches and photographs which keep their memory alive.
We can also recognise these drawings due to their volume. That’s right, you heard it correctly! They always include glued-on elements reflecting the three-dimensional nature of the artwork.
Although over three years of preparation were needed for the project, Christo exhibited Running Fence for a mere 14 days!
Here are a few figures to give ourselves a sense of the project’s scale:
It required 200,000 square metres of heavy white nylon fabric.
This fabric was hung from a steel cable that was stretched between 2,000 steel posts driven 91 centimetres into the ground.
The upper and lower edges of the 2,000 fabric panels were attached to the cables using 350,000 hooks.
This "barrier" stretched out from the outskirts of the Californian city of Petaluma, going over the pastures of Sonoma and Marin counties, and up to the waters of Bodega Bay.
Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, struck easement agreements with 60 owners and tenants whose properties were intersected by the fence.
Construction workers spent five months putting up the posts and wiring for the fence. A second team of 300 workers suspended the fabric.
The completed fence was displayed for two weeks in early September 1976, receiving about two million visitors.
This work examines both the concept of borders and land use by different communities.

 


ART’S COOL, aka "art is cool"! An informal get-together around contemporary art, where curious minds meet unique artworks. Simple, right?
From time to time, ART’S COOL takes you on a “HAPPY VIEWS” experience. And that was the case today with Maxime and Vanessa, who looked at the artwork “Running Fence“ by Christo..
These artworks form part of the Nestlé Art Collection.
Commentary on them came from René Ciocca, Head of Corporate Identity & Design at Nestlé, and Julie Enckell Julliard, Head of Cultural Development at HEAD.  
With the voices of René Ciocca, Nicolas Julliard, Ellen Ichters, and Andrew Nimmo.  
You can see photos of the artworks as well as portraits of the contributors from this episode at www.artscool.ch.
Concept and production by Patrick Comte, Florence Grivel, and Nadja Imhof.
English translation and narration by Andrew Nimmo.
Music and sound design by Christophe Gonet.
This episode has been produced and broadcast thanks to the generous support of Nestlé.
It’s a Young Pods production.