Modern art folks. Suggest experiencing with an open mind and good humor. It
is also okay if you don't like it. Should be fun and beautiful tho. Risk
taking on the unveiling is an added bonus - doesn't anyone enjoy the rush of
taking a risk? Remember, Michaelangelo hid in a Florence basement cause he
pissed off the Pope. In the early '90s I got to see some incredible sketches
on the walls down there cause he ran out of paper - all because he took an
artistic risk. The modern era has changed the risk threshold as well as the
meaning and experience of art.

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Ruth Barton [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Sat Feb 12 19:48:55 2005
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: [BP] gates

I was going to ask the purpose of all this but then I see there isn't one.
I don't get a very clear picture of this but it sounds to me like someone
has draped a bunch of orange rags all around a park.  How is this sort of
thing allowed to happen in a public place?  Don't they have a parks
commission or something down there in civilization?  Ruth





At 12:14 PM -0500 2/12/05, Met History wrote:
Went to see the opening of the Christo's "Gates" in Central Park at 8 AM
this morning.  Big orange metal portals have been erected along the paths
in the last few days, and this morning they started dropping the orange
material.

I had thought it would billow from portal to portal, making long tunnels of
orange, but its actually sort of a hanging curtain effect, the portal
perhaps 8 feet wide and 15 feet high, with perhaps 7 feet of fabric
released downwards  (by pulling velcro tapes with long hooks) and
fluttering down from the top cross bar.  (Note to self: next time, get
hooks, go out at 2 AM night before, release a dozen or two.)

I had sort of thought it would be like the  Park Avenue Christmas tree
lighting "Let there be light", all at once, but this is low-tech, teams
moved from portal to portal (perhaps 4? dozen in all around the huge oval
of the Great Lawn) with long poles to yank the velco fastener open.  Since
it was windy, and since the velcro fastener loop waved in the breeze, this
took some doing - perhaps 15 tries on the one we saw until the person
finally grabbed it, pulled it across. (Note to self: bring spare hook, in
case mine falls out and gets away, as it did this morning to one team.)

Once released, the fabric was brought down by a long cardboard tube,
perhaps 6 inches wide, which fell free at the lowest point of the fabric.
They had to keep the crowds well away.

It was chilly - the Barkhorns and Grays ran together this morning - and we
became rather chilled, waiting waiting waiting, even though the sun was
breaking through the wintry-bare trees.   When we left only four of five
portals within eyesight of the great lawn had been freed.

What was astonishing was the number of people it attracted - we ran into
Lisa Cobey, the Golanns, Carol France, Stuart Johnson, Bettina Nelson,
Mikel Witte  and half a dozen others we know.   The path around the Great
Lawn was, in spots, impassible, at least with a large poodle.  Must have
been at least 1000 people on the walkways just surrounding it, and another
one or two hundred on Belvedere Castle looking out, flashbulbs popping
whenever a portal was released, like Madison Square Garden when Billy Joel
waves.

Of course, we haven't seen the Gates in fully display, and perhaps it
really is deeply irrelevant, or even annoying, but what was wonderful was
how it enlived people and got them out together.   "People will find their
own meaning in it.  It is just art - it has no purpose" as the Christos
have said.   Evasive, yet wonderful.   And the event was, truly, unmediated
- no one had any idea of what to expect, or how to react.

Made me think of the new $41 million Duccio at the Metropolitan - I have
never seen so many people in the high ital ren galleries there.   For that
matter, the main front of the Met, which is being cleaning, was absolutely
engulfed in scaffolding and netting now - not unlike the Christos'
Reichstag project.   Coincidentally, article in the Sunday (tomorrow) Real
Estate Section of Times by a noted historian has a photo of the Met under
wraps.

Best to all,  Christopher

--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Dummerston, VT

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