| Mid-morning, February 12, my wife and I stood by one of the gates to Central Park in New York, watching its walkway system take on the bright appearance of orange veins twirling and twisting against the brown-and-grey backdrop of winter. The colour was as fiery and fierce as the sun that had risen a few hours earlier. Then we joined thousands of New Yorkers and arts aficionados from around the globe to experience the first public art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the 21st century. In fact, it was the artists’ first public art realization in New York, their home for 40 years.
As an art historian, it was an extraordinary opportunity to be able to witness the opening of this historic installation. Throughout a half-century of collaboration, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have created highly celebrated public art realizations around the world. Now would be my first chance to experience their work in person.
Christo Javacheff, a Bulgarian-born artist, made his way to Paris during the 1950s via Czechoslovakia and Austria. Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon was the stepdaughter of a prominent French general. On the surface, they seemed an unlikely couple when they got together in late 1958 (as fate would have it, they were born on the same day: June 13, 1935). Yet they were able to create one of the most solid partnerships in the contemporary art world. It has resulted in a series of internationally acclaimed visual art projects, in which they have wrapped or otherwise adorned landscapes and structures throughout the world, from Australia (The Wrapped Coast, 1968-69) to Paris (The Pont Neuf Wrapped, 1977-85) and Berlin (Wrapped Reichstag, 1971-95), as well as across the U.S. (their latest work-in-progress is Over the River, a project for the Arkansas River).
Since their arrival in New York, Christo and Jeanne-Claude had aspired to create a major public exhibition for the city. Impressed by New York’s skyline, they proposed five projects involving the wrapping of a number of Manhattan buildings between 1964-68, but were denied permission. Undeterred, they shifted their focus from the vertical to the horizontal, zooming in on the vast flow of people through the streets and pathways of New York. The resulting proposal was The Gates, a project incorporating, among other visual elements, a human presence.
By choosing Central Park in the heart of Manhattan, Christo and Jeanne-Claude provided, through a contemporary visual installation-cum-"intervention," a tangible link to the vision of the park’s creators and designers in 1858. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s vision conformed to the standards of their day, reflecting 19th-century attitudes towards nature and the ideals of a democratic society. The park was planned as a natural landscape in which urban dwellers of all backgrounds could mingle and find respite from the pressures of life. In fact, the title of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s project was inspired by Olmsted and Vaux, who referred to the openings in the continuous stone wall surrounding the park as "gates."
It took over a quarter-century for Christo and Jeanne-Claude to realize their vision. After numerous public hearings, meetings and consultations with community organizations, their original proposal was turned down in 1981. But Christo and Jeanne-Claude persisted and, no doubt thanks in part to strong support from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city finally gave the project the green light in 2003. The Gates opened to the public on February 12, 2005 and remained in place until February 27.
The project was financed entirely by the artists, to the tune of more than $20 million US. Money was raised through the sale of preparatory drawings, collages and scale models, as well as early works by Christo from the 1950s and ’60s. The benefit to the city will be sizable. According to New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, tens of thousands of people were expected to come to see the project, generating an estimated $80 million US in business.
As with all of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s previous temporary installations, The Gates reflects an expression of joy and beauty. The entire project highlighted the sculptural topography of the park and celebrated the organic beauty of the surrounding environment, while the geometric structure of the gates provided a visual counterpoint reflecting the grid pattern of the surrounding city blocks. The 7,500 saffron-coloured gates followed the edges of a selected 36-kilometre stretch of walkway, creating a "visual ribbon." Spatial intervals for more than 3.5 metres added a rhythmic pattern to the entire realization, allowing the pleated nylon fabric to pulse and sway at the whim of the wind. This movement, combined with that of the spectators walking through the gates, brought an additional kinetic element and offered a counterbalance to the static presence of the framework of the gates, trees and architectural elements in the park.
The artists have insisted that the gates were not intended to be seen from above or outside. They were conceived to be experienced on the ground, at eye level, where, as you moved through the park, they would double up and crisscross, rising over the hills, then passing underfoot, through an underpass, or suddenly appearing through a stand of trees, their fabric fluttering.
Nearly 150 years ago, Olmsted and Vaux talked about the park as a place of dignity for the masses, a locus of democratic ideals, influencing "the minds of men through their imaginations." With The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have paid a gracious homage to Olmsted and Vaux’s vision. The immense orange ribbon followed the ingenious and whimsical curves, loops, hills and dips that the park’s designers originally contrived as antidotes to the rigid grids of the surrounding city streets and, by extension, to the general hardships of urban life. The Gates project had something of a cathartic and contemplative nature, bringing relief from our day-to-day hardship and, at the same time, inviting us to participate in the process of artistic discovery. Victor Hugo said, "there is nothing more interesting than a wall behind which something is happening." And this proved true with The Gates, which invited us to discover what was beyond them.
Jacek Malec is director of Calgary’s Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts. |
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