Miami Beach Stories
The Two Weeks the Bay Turned Pink
· 2 min read · Miami Beach
The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude called it Surrounded Islands. The islands themselves are man-made, spoil islands left over from dredging the bay, and before the art went up the crews hauled roughly forty tons of old garbage off them, abandoned appliances and boat wreckage included. Then 430 workers unfurled 6.5 million square feet of woven pink fabric, sewn into 79 patterns so it hugged each island's exact shape and reached two hundred feet out over the water.
Six and a half million square feet of pink
It cost more than three million dollars, and the artists paid every cent themselves by selling Christo's own drawings. No sponsors, ever. That was the rule. Thousands watched from the causeways between Miami and Miami Beach, from boats, from the air. Museums still credit those two pink weeks with putting Miami on the international art map.
And then it was gone. That was the point.
Do you know someone who saw the pink islands in person?
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Quick answers
- What were the pink islands in Biscayne Bay in 1983?
- The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude called it Surrounded Islands. The islands themselves are man-made, spoil islands left over from dredging the bay, and before the art went up the crews hauled roughly forty tons of old garbage off them, abandoned appliances and boat wreckage included.