Christo and Jean Claude: The Gates

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.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Festivals and Events