Imagine rolling hills spotted with eighteen-foot tall yellow umbrellas, or islands surrounded entirely by swathes of hot pink fabric. Perhaps more surreal still, imagine seeing the Reichstag building in Berlin taken out of its everyday parliamentary function and wrapped like a present.
These seemingly fantastic images were ideated and brought to reality through the work of revolutionary conceptual artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a legendary man and wife team.
Plans for their next work, "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1970-2005," are currently displayed in Tisch Library, along with the sketches for several of their earlier works.
"The Gates," which will be on display in February 2005, will include 7,500 gates, 16 feet high. Each gate will have a free hanging panel of saffron-colored vinyl attached to the top bar, which will stop seven feet short of the ground. The gateways will anchor and follow the walking path through Central Park in intervals of 10 to 15 feet.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude hope that these gates, erected in the dead of winter, contrasting with the dark colors of the season and white snow, will form a warm golden river visible from a great distance. The flowing fabric will reflect the organic shape of the paths, while the rectangular frames will echo the grid-like pattern of the surrounding city.
Crazy or genius, depending on how one chooses to look at it, their work has pushed the envelope and changed art's public identity in many ways. Though the works are a collaboration, the couple markets Christo as the artist and Jeanne-Claude as the manager, art dealer, coordinator and organizer.
The most unique aspect of Christo's work is his ability to free art from the restraints of the canvas, thereby bringing it out into the open for all to see. Photographs of their past projects as well as studies for their current undertaking, "The Gates" in Central Park, are currently being showcased on campus at the Tisch Library. The photographs in the library, signed by the artist himself, illustrate a few of Christo's most famous undertakings.
These projects, like "Wrapped Coast," and "Valley Curtain," are fairly well-represented by their names, which describe the essence of each project. The works took place in, respectively, the coast of Little Bay, Australia, and Rifle, Colorado. They exemplify the magnitude of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work, which has made them impossible to overlook.
Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo, originally named Christo Javacheff, began his artistic career at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia, where he studied sculpture, painting, and stage design. From store windows to the countryside, Christo's work has since explored the inner and outer effects of art on person and place.
Jeanne-Claude Denat was born to a French family in Casablanca and educated in France and Switzerland. The two met in Paris in 1958 and in 1961 created their first collaborative work: "Dockside Packages," consisting of stacked oil barrels covered in cloth. All of the materials were borrowed from the dock workers in Cologne Harbor, where the piece was displayed for two weeks.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude's ideas are on such a Herculean scale that they take an enormous amount of time, money, and preparation to execute. The two come up with ideas together, then Christo proceeds to make scale-models and sketched studies for the proposed tasks.
The projects often take decades to complete, given the amount of time the two must dedicate to getting approval from different city officials in the many locations they have worked. For example, they have been working on "The Gates" since 1979.
In these days of corporate sponsorship, perhaps the most incredible part of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's accomplishments is that the two personally supply all of the funds needed to realize their designs. They do not accept grants, donations, or volunteer help of any kind. The money they use is made exclusively from selling his early lithographs, prints, and studies, some of which hang permanently around Tisch.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo are committed to keeping their art pure, and having that financial independence allows them to be free of compromise and outside pressure. It is rare that an artist is able to remove the influence of money from the process in this way.
These structures are to be put up in five days, will remain up for 16 days, and will then be removed without any lasting effect on the environment. The 15,000 steel bases (600 lbs each) and the 65 miles worth of recyclable vinyl will be manufactured in workshops in and around the city. This follows the pattern in Christo and Jeanne-Claude's projects to incorporate local communities by manufacturing as much of the materials needed in the area of the work and using local manpower to put the works together. The project will provide employment for thousands of New York residents.
The duo's works are intended to involve the audience; their interaction with the projects is part of their meaning. The viewer is expected to help create his or her own experience, and thus participate in the artistic endeavor. The pieces are intended to force people to take new perspectives on familiar images and settings. The project intends to effect change in viewers' mental framework long after the installations are taken down, showing one of the many ways in which art transcends its physical aspect.
