NEW YORK - For two weeks in February, walkways in Central Park will be festooned with 23 miles of saffron-colored fabric gates by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude in a public art project they have sought to do for 23 years.I'm so excited!
The artists had unsuccessfully been trying for years to win city approval for the piece, titled "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979 to 2005," until Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a patron of the arts, agreed to it.Ole Mike is quite a few things.
Beginning next month, 7,500 16-foot metal frames designed to hold the fabric will be erected throughout the park at 15-foot intervals. The fabric will be installed on Feb. 12, 2005, the artists said, and will remain until Feb. 27.The artistes' own rendering makes it look like a succession of clotheslines with a yellow sheet on each.
"All our work is about freedom," the artists said Monday in a statement, addressing the impermanence of their work. "Nobody can buy our projects, nobody can sell tickets to experience our projects.Kind of like my Monster Thickburger wrapper?
"Freedom is the enemy of possession and possession is equal to permanence. That is why our projects cannot remain and must go away forever. Our projects are 'once-in-a-lifetime' and 'once upon a time.'"
But I will give 'em credit for one thing:
The artists, who have previously wrapped the German Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in Paris in fabric and surrounded part of Australia's coast in sand-colored cloth, will pay for the costs related to the project and donate $3 million to the city.Dang! Maybe they'd like to wrap my barn! Or even the dog house. And why can't we work out a deal like that with some of the usual culture vultures that the taxpayers end up funding?
