Art

In 2005, the married collaborators known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude installed 7,503 gates draped in saffron-colored nylon along the pathways of New Yorks Central Park. The artistic intentions of the project, whatever artistic theory might have prompted the installation, seemed vague, even when considered in light of the artists own explanations. In a 2010 interview, Christo explained that his work is an interpretation of landscape and architecture (Newman).  Disregarding any notion that a redeeming concept might improve the public perception of the project, Christo resisted any claim to an aesthetic theory undergirding his work, saying, The concept is easy. Any idiot can have a good idea (Newman).  The name of the project, however, seems to belie Christos repudiation of concept.  It is clear that The Gates, Central Park, New York, 19792005 spent the first twenty-six years of its existence as a concept awaiting realization.  But Christos response to the question of concept indicates that he wanted the viewer to appreciate the installation purely on aesthetic terms, to feel the grandeur and whimsy of the billowing gates. But because much of the public lacks an aesthetic sense, the installation was widely derided and inadequately appreciated.

The project took on a life of its own, that is, one uncontrolled by the artists themselves, in the popular media. Aesthetic merit was not the chief concern of most critiques.  A New York Post editorial was typical in its attack on the installations cost to the city Flapping like undies on a tenement clothesline, the radioactive-looking orange fabric sheets sullied the parks austere winter beauty in the cause of generating a claimed, but entirely unsubstantiated, 254 million in economic activity for the city (Cuozzo).  A procession of New York Times headlines shows a more restrained, though no less skeptical, assessment of the installation Whose Color Is It Anyway (February 23, 2005) Some Sadder than Others as first Gates Start Falling (March 1, 2005) Enough About Gates as Art, Lets Talk About that Price Tag (March 5, 2005).    

Christo and Jeanne Claude did attempt to put their own spin on the project with an authorized documentary, The Gates, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Albert Maysles. While the film does contain some beautiful shots of the bright gates in a snowy park, most of the screen time is taken up with the reactions of New Yorkers. Some are critical and dismissive, while others demonstrate the proper awe.  But this hardly seems like the kind of documentary the artists should have shot if their aim was to impart an authentic aesthetic experience.  Filled as it is with perspectives on the art, the documentary lacks the purity of the work itself.  It seems that Christo and Jeanne-Claude should have exerted more control over the film representation of the project.  And a better handling of the popular media, the media in which, after all, most people would see the installation, would surely have improved the experience many viewers had.  The installation and the reaction to it demonstrate how artists working in unconventional media might lose control of their work as it is recorded and reproduced.