Conversation, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8388 by Fred Hatt
For two weeks in February, 2005, the muted winter landscape of New York’s Central Park was altered by over seven thousand orange curtained gates straddling every meandering footpath of the great park. Detractors consistently described the nylon fabric as “shower curtains”, but the environmental installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude was inspired by the traditional Shinto torii, gates signifying the entrance to sacred space.
Viewing the Gates in Central Park, 2005, map from the New York Times
Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been altering the landscape and the cityscape, usually with fabrics, since the 1960’s. I first became aware of their work in the 1970’s, when I saw the Maysles brothers documentary about the creation of their Running Fence, shimmering white fabric along 25 miles of rolling hills and into the sea on the California coast. As the film showed, the great majority of the actual work they do is administrative and organizational, negotiating with bureaucracies and property owners, a task that took twenty-five years in the case of The Gates. The engineering is minimalist and efficient, the materials industrial. Their work is ephemeral, installed for a limited time, and unsellable. It appears that they fund these huge projects mainly by selling photos, prints and preparatory sketches like this one:
The Gates, Project for Central Park, New York City, 2003, collage by Christo
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s combination of aesthetic simplicity, huge scale, and very limited duration gives the work an interesting effect. It exists for many years as a plan, a project, only very briefly as a reality, and then in a long, lingering afterlife of memories and images. Its design seems aimed at altering a sense of space, but it succeeds also in altering the sense of time.
Vessels, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8398, by Fred Hatt
I took The Gates as an opportunity to practice my photography. The saffron fabric seemed to capture the warmth of the sun in the gray wintry air.
Composition, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8400, by Fred Hatt
The colorful rectangles contrasted with the monochrome wriggliness of bare branches and 19th Century cast iron froufrou.
Cherubs, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8432, by Fred Hatt
Here the ephemeral curtains are glimpsed over the top of a boulder that has occupied its space for hundreds of millions of years.
Manhattan Schist, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8449, by Fred Hatt
The Gates created another skyline for the city of skylines.
Skyline, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8452, by Fred Hatt
South End, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8481, by Fred Hatt
Central Park is woven with extensive curlicues of footpaths, but usually they are invisible from a distance.
Breeze, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8492, by Fred Hatt
At dusk, the yellow-orange fabric took on a darker tone.
Dusk, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8512, by Fred Hatt
Construction Sign, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8530, by Fred Hatt
The orange color reminded many people of the orange construction equipment and safety markers seen everywhere in the city. To some it seemed the entire park had become a construction zone. The Gates had lots of detractors, grousing about all the hype, about how it didn’t fulfill traditional artistic values, about how it desecrated the classic landscape design of Olmsted and Vaux, about how they couldn’t enjoy the park with all the damn shower curtains and extra tourists. I think some of these were the same folks that fire off an angry letter every time NPR mentions the existence of popular culture. If you want to complain about the alteration of the landscape, how about the Second Avenue Subway project, which promises to keep a major commercial artery ripped up for the better part of a decade?
Bridge, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8617, by Fred Hatt
Overlook, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8624, by Fred Hatt
For me, The Gates provided interesting aesthetic effects, but only became truly beautiful when the snow fell.
Winter, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8746, by Fred Hatt
Snow Field, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8752, by Fred Hatt
Reflecttion, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8764, by Fred Hatt
The Gates were emblems of warmth standing amid the ice and snow.
Frozen Lake, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8899, by Fred Hatt
My friend Kayoko Nakajima, a dancer, was inspired to move among the billowing panels of color.
Kayoko's Dance, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo #8984, by Fred Hatt
The Gates inspired many other artists and parodists, including the charming Somerville Gates.
I walked just about every part of that wonderful park during those two weeks, whenever I had some free time.
Night and Snow, The Gates, Central Park, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005, photo panorama #6,by Fred Hatt
And then it was gone, the materials recycled, the tourists gone, the pervasive orange accenting (or blight, if you prefer) vanished completely. It was only an experience.
For my view of another giant temporary art installation in another great NYC park, click here.
