Christo's The Gates

[Corwin]

OK, New Yorkers.... my partner and I are flying into The Big Apple next weekend to see this exhibit... Has anyone seen it yet and what did you think?

[glammaman2000]

i have errands i'll have to run on the upper east side on monday&i hope to see them then.i have friends with a place on central park west&my sister has an apt.that overlooks the park;so i can also hope for an overview.we're really priveleged!let me know what YOU think!

[glammaman2000]

it was sunny today(hope YOU have good weather!)so i had to check it out!only disappointment came early.it was too spur-of-the-moment to bother family or friends,so i went up in the new Time-Warner building for an overview.usually,the sight of Central Park South is spectacular;but they had put up a huge orange curtain to"Salute the Gates"&you could hardly see the park at all!DUUUHHH!!!back at ground level,i entered at Columbus Circle,walked up to Bethesda fountain(72nd st.)&exited through Strawberry Fields.no actual gates in the"Fields"(ms.ono said nono)but they run throughout the entire park.place was PACKED,but was carnival&spiritual at the same time.lots of german tourists.sun makes the curtains look like Tibetan prayer flags.view from metropolitan museum roof is supposed to be wonderful.hope you enjoy it!g

[Mdlftr]

??I've heard about this, seen still pictures in the papers.

What is this supposed to signify, again?

[Besides a colossal waste of money ?!] [I heard something like $400,000!?]

[Still p.o.ed about Shrub's budget, which IS a colossal waste of money in all the wrong places!!]

Mdlftr

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Mdlftr

??I've heard about this, seen still pictures in the papers.

What is this supposed to signify, again?

Art.

Originally Posted by Mdlftr

[Besides a colossal waste of money ?!] [I heard something like $400,000!?]

private funds



"Under the white clouds, the snow is falling.
You can't see the white clouds, or the snow.
Or the cold, or the white glow of the earth.
A solitary man glides downhill on his skis.
The snow is falling.
It falls until the man disappears back into the landscape.

My friend Serge, who's one of my oldest friends, has bought a painting.
It's a canvas about five foot by four.
It represents a man who moves across a space and disappears."
Marc in _ART_

[Mdlftr]

..um...o.k.

If you can get 'private funds' to support your 'installation', more power to ya!

Remember from those Art Survey courses in college...

Marcel DuChamps (I think he was the one) entered a porcelin urinal in the Paris exhibition and labeled it "art".?


More on point to this board: Arnold (in competition shape) once posed live at the Whitney Museum in New York City on a revolving platform in front of an admiring crowd of the self-described elite of NY. Now, THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND AS ART!

Mdlftr

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Mdlftr

More on point to this board: Arnold (in competition shape) once posed live at the Whitney Museum in New York City on a revolving platform in front of an admiring crowd of the self-described elite of NY. Now, THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND AS ART!

Dude, you really need to see Yasmina Reza's play _ART_. (and no, it doesn't have naked muscular men in it)

[glammaman2000]

the actual cost was around 21million.the artists paid for it themselves.they support it by selling the sketches&paintings that make up the original proposal."what does it mean?"what does a tree mean?you can appreciate something as beautiful,or moving,even if it doesn't have a plot.&it is very beautiful.

[polomuscle]

it was underwhelming
i wish the 20mil could have been spent on an installation of bodybuilders in nyc.

[glammaman2000]

(the amount of time it took to realise this project)i would guess that much has already been spent on bodybuilders in nyc.

[Corwin]

You can read my reaction on my blog. (if you like my blog, feel free to vote for it here .)

[glammaman2000]

...you enjoyed it!couldn't figure out how to vote for your blog(dumb like that)but i definitely would!NYTimes had a small blurb about people that didn't like the work.punchline was"barbarians at'theGates'".on the simplest level,one has to ask,"would you be wandering around Central Park in february with a gazillion other folks if it wasn't here?"it literally"moves"people!on a 3rd viewing(different location)it brought up other images.party banners that say"welcome home","bon voyage","congratulations"!if you've seen chinese paintings of urban landscapes;where things in the distance are at the top of the page,but not smaller or less distinct than objects in the foreground;the bright color along the paths simultaneously leads your eye into the distance&makes all the ways"equal".it is very serendipitous when you consider that the original plan was to mount it in the fall.i'm hoping to see it 1 more time with snow on the ground.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by glammaman2000

...you enjoyed it!couldn't figure out how to vote for your blog(dumb like that)but i definitely would!

click here

Click on 5 stars

Click on vote

Yes, I am a blog vote-whore. I admit it.

Originally Posted by glammaman2000

NYTimes had a small blurb about people that didn't like the work.punchline was"barbarians at'theGates'".on the simplest level,one has to ask,"would you be wandering around Central Park in february with a gazillion other folks if it wasn't here?"

We went to MoMA too. 45 minutes to get in should have been the first clue. After about an hour, we were so frustrated we left in disgust. There were SO many people there, you couldn't appreciate the art. It became about the people (and rudeness) and crowds and not about the art.

Originally Posted by glammaman2000

i'm hoping to see it 1 more time with snow on the ground.

Snow would add an entirely different perspective to it.

On a more board-related-note, the joggers in spandex and bikers were fun too.

Originally Posted by glammaman2000

...didn't like the work.punchline was"barbarians at'theGates'".on ...

Huh? What's a work.punchline ?

[Mdlftr]

LG,
I think what was being said was:

The New York Times wrote an article about Christo's work of art, "The Gates" and referred to the people who did NOT like the work as "Barbarians At The Gates."

This sounds like the NYT typical snotty/humorous attitude of "We're so hip and cool because we're in NY! Everyone else who thinks our current fads are riduculous is like the barbarians who sacked Rome. Like Rome, NY is THE bastion of civilzation and culture!" It was also a play on the name of the installation itself, "The Gates". Oh, we're so in love with our own humor we can barely stand ourselves for our cleverness!

At least, that's MY take on it!

MDlftr, who visits NY from time to time, but would NEVER live there! [I'll live without the dirt, noise, crime and high prices, thank you!]

I haven't seen the display, but I have seen photos of it. It would be an interesting experience. Not terribly productive, creative or even inspiring but it would be interesting. If some jackass with more money than he knows what to do with wants to spend tens of millions of dollars building this, then so be it.

It did probably employ some people temporarily so they could keep their families fed. Spread the wealth around a little. You know, the "trickle down economy" thing the Republicans so dutifully espouse. Much better though than throwing out 26 million in cash to the ignorant masses as the Democrats might espouse.

I like NYC. Manhattan especially. Great place to visit. Kind of like Disney world for real adults. When you can afford to live above the melee, travel in limosine, and eat in restaurants without rats or roaches. But you're right about a strangeness of attitude among the general New Yorker. They seem to be very provincial and naive about the real world. Much like Californians.

If there's anybody here I haven't insulted, I sincerely apologize. --Brahams--

What do you think? Could I get a job at the NY Times? Was I snotty enough?

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by LeatherGryphon

What do you think? Could I get a job at the NY Times?

What's your feeling about moving to NYC, 25 degree temperatures and snow?

Originally Posted by LeatherGryphon

Was I snotty enough?

Needs work.

Originally Posted by Corwin

What's your feeling about moving to NYC, 25 degree temperatures and snow?.

It leaves me cold!

[glammaman2000]

.. i LOVE snotty/hip!so i'm happy as a clam here in NYC!but i thought of the grousers(many of them locals)as being"too cool"to enjoy the work.it HAS had a huge economic impact.hot dog vendors who would normally make $100a day(it IS february)are making$1000,there was an article about window washers whose phones were ringing off the hook in their slow season because people were hosting parties around the park.unfortunately;that's also the reason Corwin had to wait on line for MoMA.life IS hard here in some ways(money)but it gets to be background noise after a while.NYers are VERY narcissitic;but it can be about"everything is worse here"as much as"everything is better".&i don't mind the weather.i like the change of seasons.winters are milder than where i come from(upstate)there are no earthquakes,tornadoes,hurricanes,volcanoes,mudslid es.&half the benefit of living here is that you know where the good,CHEAP stuff is!tourists really get taken advantage of.

[RadRx]

Maybe I'm reading too much into that 'punchline,' but I thought it was the Philistines that eschewed creative expression. Barbarians, Goths and Visigoths had creative expression; it had different inspiration and was, therefore, somehow inferior from the Roman perspective.

Personally, the pictures of the work in question did nothing for me. The only Saffron that ever made me take notice was on AbFab.

[glammaman2000]

...it's a PARTY in central park during the drabbest month of the year!why can't you be innocent,optimistic&cheerful like us newyorkers?(did i just say that....?)

[Yachirobi]

You have to admit that from the pictures it's not very striking. That's what happens with a lot of modern art. That's what happens with a lot of modern anything.

Too much art has gotten away from the people. It's too aloof and too concerned with itself. It's all about thought but whatever happened to emotion? Whatever happened to the human connection? There are still those who do remember but very often they are overlooked or shunned because the art elite, the destroyers of the faith, has a problem with emotion. Really, they have a problem wth anything that seems to reach out and engage the common person.

So I look at those gates and I have to think that I agree somewhat with that man who said they aren't art. They are art but from afar they don't really grab a person. And, honestly, they look ugly. No one who has to see that industrial shade of orange every day wants to go to the big art exhibit to be confronted with a bunch of gates that are that same, horrible, evil, soul killing color.

[glammaman2000]

i mistook some of the road construction signs in the area for part of the exhibition;& vice-versa.but the human interaction is the relationship between the piece&the people who come to see it!& on that level,i think it has been a huge success.

[RadRx]

His vision led him outdoors

Hargo's - The Somerville Gates

Oddly enough, their tributes kept the original color.