It’s not everyday you have a major, historical public art project in your back yard. So despite the fact that I
had to ride only a few subway stops to get to Central Park, I still feel like going up to see the Gates project
was like traveling. Thus, I am going to write about this as if it were an expedition of sorts. So let
me first say that I spent a fair amount of time at the Gates, the monumental and emotionally stirring work by
Christo and Jean Claude. I was up there at various points all
week, interviewing volunteers and shooting a
video
piece for the
New
York Times.com.
During the week, I was caught up in the work I was doing, so I didn’t think much about how I was going to be
affected by it when it was revealed. But yesterday, when the 600 workers finally ripped open the velcro
sutures, and unveiled, or unraveled, or unfurled…whatever the appropriate term is…the work, I confess I was moved.
Blown away, really, by the spectacle of it all. If you have been planning a trip to New York City…push up those
reservations and come check out the Park. This is a truly unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience to see
these gates.
The news reviews have been mostly positive, but occasionally lukewarm. The Times’
Michael Kimmelman called
them ”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.” While the Post’s
Blake Gopnik, apparently in a sour
mood, called them “charming bits of civic ornament”, and likened them to “some newfangled kind of daytime fireworks
display”. Forget Gopnik and believe Kimmelman. The gates may not have some deep celestial meaning behind them. You’re
not going to come here and be religiously transformed, but you will see the park and experience its magnificence in a
whole new way. And you will be dazzled by the sheer scale and the made dizzy by the blast of color.
It is, altogether, VERY cool.