The Advocate

Christo & Jean-Claude Bring New Yorkers to Central Park with “The Gates”

Masha Rumer

For two weeks in February, New York City was transformed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s large-scale installation piece, “The Gates.” The husband and wife team share the same birthday and a love of public installation art, as well as the color saffron. Having conceived the project 25 years ago, this Bulgarian-French artist duo finally brought it to completion on February 12, with the official permission of Mayor Bloomberg. “The Gates” were impossible to avoid during these two weeks, even if you live in New Jersey.

Officially titled “The Gates: 1979-2005,” the project involved the installation of 7,500 gates with suspended saffron-colored nylon fabric, stationed along the entire 23 miles of walkways in Central Park. The project required 5,290 US tons of steel, 116,389 miles of nylon thread, 165,000 bolts and nuts, and 60 miles of Vinyl tube. The cost: US $20,000 million, financed entirely by the artists, who sold their sketches and earlier works to support the project.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude have a long-standing reputation for challenging traditional notions of art. In the past, they wrapped fabric around oil barrels in Cologne; they wrapped bottles, trees, and The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art; they wrapped monuments in Europe including the Reichstag in Berlin. They surrounded islands in Florida with fabric and erected a barrel wall. All projects are temporary and the artists refuse volunteer help and contributions from corporate or private foundations.

So what is the purpose of “The Gates” in 30-degree weather? For many New Yorkers and tourists flocking in from all over the country, this was a chance to bask in color in the center of the snow-covered city. Andrew, from Brooklyn, took his five-year-old daughter Julia for an afternoon walk in the park. “I like them! It's a happening!” he said. “[Julia] asked me what the purpose of the gates was, and I said the purpose was that Christo wanted to just get people to come out.” For others, the project offered an adventure, shaking up February’s stalemate.

Thousands of people strolled, ran, and took carriage rides through the park daily, stretching to touch the saffron fabric, eating hotdogs, taking photographs like there was no tomorrow, striking conversations with strangers, and trying to stay warm. According to a police officer working on the premises, who preferred to remain anonymous, the park saw about five times the number of visitors it typically gets in February. “Usually you just see people jogging or walking their dogs.” The majority allegedly showed up on the last weekend before the dismantling of the project.

“There is a lot of energy,” said Olga Aksakalova, an English student from the Graduate Center. “Everybody is doing the same thing—taking pictures of each other, finding the right angle, distributing those little pieces of material. In terms of the artistic goal, I’m not really sure. It’s just a way to give people some happiness and bring them together. It’s something colorful in the middle of winter.”

Christo and Jeanne-Claude hired 900 workers to put together, monitor, and dismantle the gates for two weeks after the project. Dixie DeGraw came all the way from Oregon, where she works and studies art at Portland State University.

“This was a dream come true for me, really,” said DeGraw, holding the monitor’s pole with a tennis ball secured at the end. “I get here about seven o'clock, I have a little coffee, talk to other people, then the engineer and Christo and Jeanne-Claude make announcements. Then we come out here and basically take care of the gates.” The duties include answering visitors’ questions, keeping the fabric hanging properly, and distributing hundreds of swatches. ”We just make everything look pretty and help make people happy, I guess.”

On the artistic purpose of “The Gates,” DeGraw said, “I love it, but I'm a little biased. My favorite part of it is when the wind moves through it. My favorite kind of day to look at is when there’s a good blue sky, no clouds, it's very sunny, and there's a lot of wind. That's when I think it's the most beautiful.”

André Cruz, who works for a security company in New York City, is another monitor. “I'll be here until the end. Two weeks after the closing.” Cruz’s favorite part is “meeting people from all around the world, the experience of the exhibit, just coming outside and enjoying the day as the day goes by. It's all about communicating well with the public.” Cruz has heard a variety of reactions, but most of them positive.

Many businesses, like hospitality and restaurant industry, experienced a surge of clients. Central Park itself was cashing in on $5 guides, entitled “On Walking ‘The Gates,’” and $20 mugs and baseball caps. Photographers instantly produced prints of varying quality, putting them up for sale throughout.

John, manager of Cosmic Coffee Shop on 58th and Broadway, by the South entrance to the park, was optimistic. “Everything was good. There was extra business: a lot of people from all over the world and United States. It was very busy from the morning on—nine o’clock until seven o’clock. Nice people, no problems, everybody enjoying the gates,” he commented on the project’s last Saturday.

However, many New Yorkers disapproved of the installation and the hype. Many saw “The Gates” as a gratuitous attempt of Christo and Jeanne-Claude to buy publicity, rather than spend the money on more charitable causes during a winter season when thousands are homeless. For others, the project raised questions about the definition and purpose of art: they were dissatisfied with the free-for-all interpretation. After all, the project promised a unique visual and temporal experience, fanned by Christo and Jeanne-Claude on their official website as, “Each separate ‘gate’ would be merely a relic of the artwork and not a work of art. Seven thousand, five hundred structures together in Central Park IS a work of art.” So, many expected to see something more, well, artistic. A few immigrants from the former Soviet Union were convinced that the Gates were New York’s secret expression of solidarity with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yushenko, poisoned by dioxide, who used orange as the official color of his campaign. Many critics simply saw no point to the artificiality of nylon and steel amid the natural landscape.

Yet others, whether out of peer pressure or genuine appreciation, welcomed the free opportunity to venture beyond their stoop and subway stop, to get excited, mingle with strangers, and smile in acknowledgement of somebody’s multimillion dollar attempt to change the way they view themselves and their city on a cold
February day.

Masha Rumer is a student in the PhD program in Comparative Literature and a freelance journalist.