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And let's not forget Spencer Tunick...

http://www.spencertunick.com/photos/installations/1996_2_m.jpg


...no stranger to ambitious Central Park displays (they had to position me in the back
because I was "blocking the shot")

I happen to like modern art. It's often controversial. It gets you talking. It evokes emotion.
And it gets you sent to the security office of the MOMA when you pick up a plaster telephone that's part of an installation and start having a fake conversation with your stock broker (I was young).


I like what Christo and Jeanne-Claude did in Central Park.
It's just hard for me to accept that they had $20million to spend and
that's how they chose to spend it.
I imagine a worker installing gate #1000, looking over and seeing
a family in the nearby bushes living out of a box. "Hmmmm...maybe this is a bit frivolous..."

I bet the display would've still made international news if it was half as big
and the extra $10 mil could've gone somewhere useful.

I could talk about this forever

EJH, nice pics. Most of all I'm impressed with your spelling of "tschotschkes".
You could've gone the easy route with "chachkas" but that's not what you're about.

You know, I actually had to look up the spelling once... I only hope memory served this time. Damn, if I got it right I should enter some kind of Bee or something.

yea, 20 million is such a waste imo, and they went in what? are they made of gold? or platinum?

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You know when I first heard about "The Gates" I imagined Christo and Jeanne-Claude to be a flamboyant Siegfried & Roy-esque couple who were too important for their own last names. A couple who would threaten to quit the project each time their assistant forgot to sprinkle cinnamon on their mocha-frappa-latte-chinos.
A couple who's outfits had more tshchsachskkas than their artwork.


It came as a surprise when I saw their picture that they were, in fact, my grandparents (though
unlike my grandmother, Jeanne-Claude's hair is dyed that colour intentionally)









I hope that when I reach their age, I too can have that much passion for something so utterly out-there.

Unfortunately I suspect my wish will come true in form of an invisible German Shepherd named "Cheddar".


About the $20mil issue...here's a look into their minds from a recent interview:

“Keep in mind that the money we spend is our money,” says Jeanne-Claude. “If we made a choice of buying a big estate in Aspen, Colorado, or to cover myself in diamonds, we can also do it. Because it’s our money. But it would be very uncomfortable to be covered in diamonds.”

Whether your personal taste finds this installation beautiful, ugly, silly, or a waste of money, whether you hate or love the color orange, you really have to appreciate how much planning, passion and care went into this project. Christo and J-C have been trying to get permission to do it for 26 years, since 1979. And in that time, quite a lot of thought has gone into it.

Just the logistics of the installation are astounding. They engineered it so that not so much as a single hole had to be dug, or a single inch of the 23 miles of park trails they used would be damaged. The placement of the 7500 gates takes into account every single tree, every bend in the paths, every bench, every hill.

I included this link before, but here it is again. I do encourage anyone who believes no thought went into the project to read it
http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/tg.html

That's the thing about modern art... people tend to have very strong reactions to it. But that's good. I make a point of occasionally visiting MoMA for that reason. Some of the stuff I love, some of it I look at and say "Are you f*cking kidding me?! My cat could do better!"

But hey-- I'm obviously biased about this whole Gates thing because I live in NYC and get to enjoy it. Descriptions and pictures really don't do it justice. Yeah, it's a really wacky thing for someone to do, but it's just such a cool experience to walk through these flowing curtains, everywhere you look they're branching off in different directions. To have an otherwise dreary February transformed with these brilliant streaks of color... (remember what I said before about it making cynical New Yorkers giddy?)

Its art. I would love to see it. In Chicago (and subsequently a lot of other cities) they painted cows and placed them all over the city. Pictures didn't do them justice either. I can only imagine having that same feeling I did when I was a kid playing in the clotheslines if I were there to see this in person. Thanks for the photos. Very nice!!

We had the Cow Parade here in NY... summer of 2000 I think? I loved them!

Another artist's interpretation of the Gates...this is so funny, I nearly wet myself...

http://www.not-rocket-science.com/gates.htm

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I'm not being facetious when I say this guy is a genius.


Beyond the concept itself, which is perfection, there are little touches that I appreciate like this...




The fact that he put a dog on the screen. I'm jealous of his brain.


Nice find. The whole site is great.

Bwahahaha!!! Think he really was on CNN?

Me too. Pure creative genius. The writing is right on, and there are loads of subtle details in his "installation"... the "artistic" lighting, especially in "The Desk Gates" (and did you notice the caption under that one?) And the cat perched on the side of the bathtub in "The Tub Gates", eyeing them suspiciously. This guy needs to go write for The Onion or something...

I don't think there is a single person here with the resource of 20 million
and free reign over Central Park that couldn't have created
a public art display that was simply............ .........better.
These gates LACK in beauty-creativity-provocation-
SKILL----SKILL----Skill-----and nearly any other
demonstrative image of art and or art's impact.
They are however brilliant if the goal was blah,boring,ugly or
certainly most of all- ambiguously Blah.
I think they are just another act on the part of the "IN" artist
that have had a strangle hold of the public venue for at least thirty years now.
I would compare this to someone here at PSC with skills of say..................
example:Metalic---posting the daily source as a mediocre paste job on a
magazine cover and getting a hundred votes.
I further find myself unavoidably laughing AT anyone who
considers themself an artist and at the same time pronounces
the "gates" as art, "it is art" - --
Quite possibly folks beleive that the world of art -outside if the digital art world-
"painting-architecture-sculpture etc"
is something like digital art and the community of digital art.
It is NOT.
You have been "SPOILED" with the idea that anyone who is serious about digital
art and has talent can be successful--this is not the case with other art forms.
It is this same "artists" machine that turns out stuff like these
gates that will likely in the future lock you out
of the digital art world entirely unless of course you have a degree from the right
school,have the right bloodline, or- if you are really willing to
go the distance- can pass yourself off as a
"Visionary artist "

I can see, by your gratuitous use of emoticons, that you feel quite strongly about this, Scion. And you're certainly not alone in your adamant feeling that this is somehow "not art". It's is an oft debated issue... what is art? People generally agree that a painting, drawing, sculpture, or photograph is art. So, a painting done on canvas is art? Ok. So, a painting done on the side of a building is art? Sure. How about a painting done on someone's body? What if you cover yourself in paint and press yourself onto a canvas? Is that a painting? If someone takes a photograph of that, is that art?

The point is, how can you possibly define art into a set of rules? Doesn't that somehow go against the spirit of it?


I find myself shaking my head at anyone who considers themself an artist and yet believes you can set rigid limits on the whole of creative vision and expression, and confine it to a narrow definition.

Honestly, I wouldn't try to say what is or isn't art. My idea of art is something that stirs my aesthetic senses. It might be beautiful, it might be disturbing. It might make me happy, angry or confused. It might have been created with paint or pixels. It's all subjective, dude.


I dunno... seems to have provoked you

Just curious... what would you do in Central Park if you could use it as your canvas? (I'm not being sarcastic, just looking for another point of view)

I dunno... seems to have provoked you ---
yeah--i've been mildly provoked-- I've been mildly provoked
since the sixties when the idea of displaying
untalented- uncreative garbage like this got
it's validation because it "provokes" people.
It's all that "artist" seem to think art is anymore.
If it provokes-then it is art.
Think about that-think about the history of art
in human culture-was it always about provocation?
and if you feel that it has been so-
has it always been about provocation of negativity
by the display of mediocre talent, or negative
reflections of the world and it's cultures? (I have just described
the majority of prominant art in the world today)
The continued praise and overwhelming presence of negative and boring art
and calling it beautiful is sad. just sad.
i venture to say there is not one artist in the world today of say..... Monet's caliber
that gets prominant attention--
I find it very sad that art and beauty,inspiration, or
ascension are words that rarely go together anymore.
I blame Picasso for this.

I'm not sure if you were quoting me there, or repeating the sentiment. Either way-- that's the whole point of debate... I'm not at all upset by this, nor do I take it personally. In fact, I'm happy to have some interesting discussion!


Let's not forget that when the Impressionist movement began, Monet's style was widely ridiculed because people couldn't accept that a painting that was not done in a realism style required any skill or had any value. People were very offended by it. I believe it was described as "throwing a pot of paint in the public's face."

So, what are the qualities you look for in "art"? What artists do you like?