A SUNNY STREAK OF - HEY, THAT'S NOT SAFFRON!
Story and photographs by Leslie Strom
"I know, John. Let's go stand under orange flaps of fabric in Central Park! We'll be in New York," I added. We always like New York. What lamer reason could I give him to go?
(Christo's Gates in Central Park start to unfurl, Saturday morning February 11, 2005, left.)
I take a shuttle from Newark and get to the hotel at the seaport about 11:30. For the City that Never Sleeps, only a few places are open in that neighborhood and instead of going atop a glittering highrise for Appletinis as we'd planned, John and I end up at a little tavern called Paris, eating nachos and drinking Boddingtons Ale. It actually suited us - we are tired and not in the mood to go too far, and since the walk past the fish market includes a few colossal wharf rat sightings, we get all the local atmosphere a tourist could ask for.
We get a couple hours sleep and at 7:30 AM the next morning catch the A train to Columbus Circle. We swim upstream of a Starbucks cup-carrying school to the source, and pick up a mocha. Then we hit Central Park. The crowds are small, mostly joggers and doggers. Three helicopters thud loudly overhead. We make our way into the center of the park and one of the 70 Gates crews comes along with a big pushcart and a long hook. People and their dogs play in the fields, waiting for things to get going. Far across the open field a crowd mills with Christo, Jeanne-Claude, the Mayor of New York City and television crews. One of the tiny orange gates opens up - the fabric rolls down and the material billows out. So tiny. Then another, then another.
The crew near us starts to unroll the first of the gates in our remote part of the park. At the end of the 16' high top bar hangs a loop. The hook guy pulls it across the wrapped bar, and it makes a velcro-ripping sound. The cover falls away, the length of pleated orange fabric unrolls and a large fiberboard tube falls clattering to the sidewalk. We all cheer and move happily to the next one.
The time-consuming part of unfurling the 7500 plus gates is the job of collecting the tubes on a cart, and balling up the cover fabric and stuffing it in a bag. I can reach up and touch the edge of the soft nylon fabric, which is the most perfect winter-contrasting color they could have chosen. The color of the nylon frame matches the fabric. I look at my orange Rhodia grid notebook which is exactly the same color.
I take a picture of a few gates, some furled, some unfurled, across the park with my camera phone which takes dreadful pictures beyond a few feet away - but I figure to send it to a few few friends as a hello. To my surprise, the photo has an abstract fuzzy look and the color is wonderful and exactly the effect you get walking around the installation. Of course the New York Times has wonderful pictures the next day but in all the feel is the same. The Saturday morning is cold and dry and very gray - bare gray trees and gray city buildings and metal fences and stone things and gray ground. The orange domino rows of gates stand out beautifully, like a streak of sunrise.
The near-freezing temperature finally gets to us and we and move on to the Cooper-Hewitt museum of design. A building across the street has lengths of the yellow-orange fabric hanging from every iron-barred window, from ground level up to the top floor. A few cabs go by - a bit more yellow than Christo's chosen color, but it is as though they are rolling ads for the Gates in Central Park. People start showing up around the park sporting sweaters and scarves of the same color, just for fun. A man tells me he'd just been to Estonia where the same yellow-orange is the color of one of the political parties last election. When we come out of the museum, and walk down the street along Central Park West, there is the gentle flash of cheerful yellow-orange fabric, waving us back into the park....
Let the Parodies Begin!
Several worthy parodies appeared the day after the Gates opening. One that came and went, as all good art should, was a tiny installation running through the house, at the mercy of a fat house cat and the cleaning person.
My favorite, still on line, is the brilliant "The Crackers." Unlike Christo, the artists are more than happy to profit from their vision.
Here Come the Collectors!
The artists Christo and Jeanne Claude were adamant that the art installation be non-commercial, with all proceeds to benefit the Central Park Conservancy. To placate those who wanted a souvenir, a million small swatches of the curtain material were distributed to visitors. Here's a few things found on eBay a day after the Gates at Central Park opened:
Collectors have put the swatches up for sale, usually running in the $10 range.
So you have your swatch one way or another, and simply must do it justice. Here's a display stand as profoundly moving as your Central Park (or eBay) experience only, well, smaller:
