No barbarians at ‘The Gates’

Last month I googled "The Gates" by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and marveled over the photos and video that the New York Times provided on the Big Apple’s art spectacle of the season. Well, make that the world’s, thanks to instant, virtual gratification via the Net.

The day The Gates was unveiled, rather unfurled, hundreds of thousands of art lovers all over the planet, conservatively speaking, must have tuned in and turned on to the special event.

Christo is, of course, the world-renowned conceptual artist who has worked on big-ticket projects over the past four decades, and whose every undertaking draws global interest. Not as well-known is the fact that he’s been collaborating on all of these projects with his lifetime partner, Jeanne-Claude.

Now stepping into their 70s, both have long been enviably self-sufficient, and have dealt regularly with city and federal governments like veritable heads of state. Indeed they are, and it’s the state-of-the-art they represent. Of course, they’ve also been derided as nothing more than "wrap-around artists" who simply work on a colossal scale. The media frenzy that usually accompanies a Christo installation gets the green dander up among artists who can’t stand others’ success.

Pros and cons over Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s collaborations have swung back and forth. What is certain is that they usually get their way, even if it often takes a lot of time to see a project get off the ground. Owing to sheer ambition and scope, their gargantuan projects require years of preliminary design and paperwork, engineering studies, and complicated contracts that even involve teams supplying manual and mechanical labor.

"Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Project for Central Park" took all of 26 years to mount. It was conceived in 1979, and was meant to be a gift to the city where the couple, Bulgarian-and-French-born Americans, have lived since 1964. But the application for the permit was denied in 1981, and not until 2003 did the artists gain permission, leading to a 43-page contract with the City of New York. Among others, it states that the artists "will not derive any income from the sale of The Gates merchandise," and that "proceeds will benefit Nurture New York’s Nature Inc. and the arts, Central Park and other New York City parks." It also assured city residents that the art project would in no way harm or damage any part or feature of Central Park, animals and trees included.

The Gates went on view on Feb. 12 and was dismantled on March 1. For 16 days, the public walked under a series of 16-foot-high lateral posts that had fabric of saffron color billowing seven feet above the ground. 7,500 such gates followed the edges of 23 miles (37 kilometers) of walkways and footpaths from 59th St. and 101st St. and from 5th Avenue to Central Park West. The fabric panels blew in the wind and "radiated a warm glow of translucent color."

Depending on the time of day, weather conditions at winter’s end, and the proximity and angle from which they were viewed, the cloth portals appeared as brilliant red, iridescent orange, or bright yellow. From a distance, the spectacle earned the description of being like "a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of trees."

Equally stupendous was the material and physical effort that guaranteed viewer safety. The Gates were secured by steel weights placed on hard surfaces, necessitating 15,000 bases that required 5,000 tons of steel, or about two- thirds of what was used for the Eiffel Tower. The fabric panels were made of flame-retardant fabric. The poles were of vinyl, obviating any possibility of a lightning-rod effect. Official and private security was provided 24/7, this to discourage any inappropriate activity.

February was ideal as there were fewer visitors out in the park. The trees were bare, so that the work of art could be seen from a distance through leafless branches. Snow-covered ground on some days enhanced the sinuously rippling day-glo effect.

The cost of the project? A staggering $21 million.

But is it art, one may ask, as is often asked irascibly of conceptual projects and environmental installations that tweak traditional visual art, and rely more on spontaneous idea/s rather than painterly craftsmanship or diligent representational application.

In the FAQ sheet on the project’s official online site, it is simply stated that "The Gates have no purpose (other than) they are …a work of art."

Further, it is explained almost ingenuously: "Christo and Jeanne-Claude are artists, they wish to create works of art of joy and beauty. They believe the work of art will be beautiful and the only way to see it is to build it. As all true artists do, they create their art for themselves; if other people like it, it is only a bonus."

Thus had it been a bonus for Berliners to see their Reichstag building in all its ornate formality entirely wrapped with fabric, in 1995, and Parisians their beloved Pont Neuf that spans the Seine sheathed in golden cloth, in 1985.

Miami’s Biscayne Bay islands were not exactly wrapped, but ringed, with pink fabric, in 1983. On Oct. 9 (Leonardo Da Vinci’s as well as John Lennon’s birthday), 1991, 1,880 workers opened 3,100 giant umbrellas nearly 20 feet high and 28.5 meters in diameter, half of them blue-colored and placed on a field in Ibaraki Japan, with the other half, in yellow, installed in California.

In 1969, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped a bay’s coastline in Australia, with synthetic woven fabric. In 1968, they sheathed a fountain in Italy; in 1970, twin monuments in Milan, in polypropylene fabric. In 1974, it was the Roman Wall in Rome; in 1967, park trees in Switzerland.

One of the most stunning was the Valley Curtain in Colorado, of woven nylon fabric that was also colored orange. Ongoing since 1999, but still awaiting a permit, has been the Over the River project, where the artists plan to sheathe the undulating course of the Arkansas River in Colorado.

Again, per the FAQ sheet: "All expenses are paid with their own money. They refuse sponsors and grants because they want to work in total freedom. They want to do WHAT they want, WHERE they want it, HOW they want it, (albeit) not always WHEN they want it."

So where does their money come from? "Christo creates preparatory drawings and collages showing what a project will look like. Those are works on paper which are sold… directly to museums, private collectors and galleries. No gallery has ever represented the works by Christo. Early works of the Fifties and Sixties they have kept in their art storages are also sold to help pay (for) a project. …Christo and Jeanne-Claude can do whatever they want, it is their own money, or they can choose to build projects, and they can pay for the life-size tests, the wind tunnel tests, the materials, the engineering, the legal fees, the labor, the insurance, etc."

What a life as artists! How enviable.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg waxed ecstatic when he led the unfurling together with the artists. He called The Gates "a once-in-a-lifetime work of art." It certainly perked up business in and around the park. It was estimated that over a million viewers, many of them out-of-towners, came to revel in the art happening.

Here are excerpts from the Times’ Michael Kimelman’s review:

"Thousands of swaths of pleated nylon were unfurled to bob and billow in the breeze. In the winter light, the bright fabric seemed to warm the fields, flickering like a flame against the barren trees. Even at first blush, it was clear that The Gates is a work of pure joy, a vast populist spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century.

"…(I)n place of the gigantic monuments of Mother Russia, forced upon the Soviet public and financed by the state, (Christo) has imagined a purely abstract art, open-ended in its meanings, paid for by the artist, and requiring the persuasion of the public through an open political process.

"After which the art comes and goes. ‘Once upon a time’ is a phrase Christo likes. Once upon a time, he imagines people will say, there were The Gates in Central Park.

"…(B)y ravishing the eye, (they) have already impressed an image of the park on the memories of everyone who has seen them. And like all vivid memories, that image can take place in the imagination, like a smell or some notes of music or a breeze, waiting to be rekindled.

"Once upon a time there were The Gates. The time is now."

An ephemeral spectacle in Central Park? Of course some Pinoys shared in the delight. Beaulah Taguiwalo reports:

"Not everyone is happy or impressed by The Gates, that’s for sure. Some are puzzled, some are upset, many are awed, or impressed, or simply overwhelmed. But for me, The Gates was one of the reasons why I was so eager to go there at that time. Kaya tuwang-tuwa ako to hear people talk about it everywhere – on the bus, at the Met museum, in Long Island where I visited an author-friend, at a shop at JFK airport.

"Even at the conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators that I attended at The Hilton New York, widely published children’s illustrator Tomie de Paola mentioned it as one sight in NYC that we must go and see – all in the spirit of continuing to hone our craft and stretching our mental muscles, so to speak.

"I thought that was especially invigorating – to be told by a hugely successful, fellow children’s book illustrator that one of the best things I can do for myself while I was there would be to go to Central Park and look at Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘The Gates.’ So I went – as if I needed to be pushed.

"It was amazing and mind-blowing. I don’t know about you, and how you’d react to something like this, but when I was walking through parts of it on a cold and lovely wintry afternoon, I honestly couldn’t help but keep saying, ‘Oh, wow, wow, wow, this is really awesome.’ I’d certainly consider it great art in the sense that it simply couldn’t be ignored. It affects you and changes the way you think and see and experience the world. I guess that’s it: it stops you in your tracks and forces you to recalibrate your head."

The day Beaulah went to Central Park, however, the artwork had yet to be unfurled. Still, it didn’t take away from her enjoyment over walking the course. And having her picture taken by Gotham’s Gates.

Another of our Pinay friends happened to visit New York at a later day. Oregon-based Melissa Nolledo-Cristoffels, daughter of the late great writer Wilfrido "Ding" Nolledo, took the other photos in this spread. A digital artist and graphic designer, like Beaulah, she was no barbarian at The Gates.

Maybe we should invite Christo and Jeanne-Claude, beg them to wrap the Batasan during a State of the Nation Address. And maybe that great good art should be made permanent.