The Passion of the Christos:
Redecorating Central Park.

7,500 Sheets of Orange Nylon, 16 Foot Tall Polyvinyl Gates
Over 23 Miles of Pathways, For Two Weeks Next February.
Then You Can Buy Souvenirs, Which Could Rise in Value.

By Henry J. Stern
April 16, 2004

Le jardin n'est pas une orangerie.

The proposed Christo intrusion in Central Park has been heralded as an artistic triumph. As the person responsible for New York City parks for fifteen years, under two distinguished mayors (Koch and Giuliani), I respectfully dissent. To show that I am not vox clamantis in deserto, I provide the following architectural criticism in Tuesday's New York Sun by James Gardner:

"If any doubts remained as to the essential unreason of the human species, these were put to rest by the decision ... to give blessings to a hare-brained plan cooked up by two conceptual artists, Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude.... [W]hat could possibly have possessed the powers that be to give their consent to anything so programmatically cockamamy as this Gates Project..."

The Bulgarian-born artist, Christo Javacheff, and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, want to cover 23 miles of Central Park pathways with 7,500 orange sheets, supported by 16-foot tall polyvinyl structures with steel bases. Christo first made the proposal in 1980, asking for 11,000 structures. The plan was rejected by then-Commissioner Gordon Davis in an authoritative 107-page analysis. Consequently, the project remained on the shelf for over twenty years.

In 2002, Mayor Bloomberg took office. As a board member of the Central Park Conservancy in the '90s he had proposed the Christo project, which was not approved by the Conservancy board.
 
The mayor appoints five members to that board, and one of his first nominees was Mr. Davis. No longer a public official, Davis is now a private lawyer who represents cultural institutions and other worthy organizations. Having changed his mind on this issue, he championed Christo at the Conservancy Board, which is his right.

The elite of the art world, who sometimes see parks and trees as building sites, not only supported Christo but gave him a legitimizing exhibition, with the help of a substantial anonymous gift from a Christo devotee.
 
It is true that the revised proposal is less intrusive than the plan submitted 24 years ago. It no longer inflicts permanent damage to the park by drilling thousands of holes in rocks for the gateposts. The show will be held in February, a time of relatively light park use, although the construction and removal of the posts will extend the period of interference with park users to two or three months. The new plan can be called 'Christo Lite,' but only in comparison to its rejected predecessor.
 
There remain, however, a number of problems with the scheme:

1) The park is itself a work of natural beauty. Unlike the Reichstag building, the scene of Christo's previous spectacle, the park does not require artificial adornment to be attractive. It indicates a less than respectful attitude toward a magnificent urban park to use it as a setting for 7,500 orange schmatas hanging from 16-foot laundry poles.

2) The proposed display is art only in the broadest sense of the word: Art as anything that someone will pay a lot of money to acquire in the hope that someone else will pay them even more for it later.

The gates are not intrinsically objects of beauty, and do not display fine design or the melding of different elements to create aesthetic gratification. Their distinction lies in their being unique—this man, and no others, got permission to display his tchotchkes all over Central Park.

3) In the performing arts or in museums, nearly anything goes. If you don't like the show, you don't have to go. But Christo's canvas is the public landscape, and millions of captive witnesses must see his structures if they look out their windows or walk in their park. This is Christo's real triumph: imposing his vistas on both the willing and the unwilling. Meanwhile, his increasing celebrity raises the value of the drawings, sketches or other residue of the project that collectors can purchase, for their own aesthetic delight, display to others, or anticipated increase in value.

Twenty-four years ago, at Parks, I tried to interest Christo in other locations in the city, but he was determined to have Central Park. In the end, he lived to see the day when a mayor would be elected with artistic sensibilities, who believes in good faith that Christo's grandiose vision of imposing 'art' on nature is justified aesthetically and economically. That is definitely a matter of opinion.
 
It will be no tragedy if the exhibit is built. It may attract tourists in a slow winter season. In its long life, the park has survived greater intrusions. When spring arrives, the arches will be removed, although I expect Christo may seek the retention of a few symbols of his achievement. A museum shop—maybe one in the park itself—could be the appropriate setting to sell individual gates as souvenirs. The gates are probably as artistic as the jockeys and pelicans that now adorn some people's front yards, although they show less detail.
 
Once an exhibit like this is held, people tend to accept it because it has become part of New Yorkers' common experience. Critics who have denounced ugly buildings, like the Huntington Hartford Gallery, get rheumy when it comes time to take them down. They worship the built environment, whatever it may be.

Christo would like to become part of city lore, much like Steve Brodie, a saloonkeeper and bookmaker who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886 to win a $200 bet (said to be $3,717 today). But even though Brodie survived and his story is remembered, we do not allow people to jump off bridges. Central Park will last long after Christo, and people will recall the gates, but that does not mean it was right to allow them to dominate the park, or that other builders with sufficient chutzpah and gelt should receive the same privilege.
 
It all comes down to a matter of taste. The Greeks, the Romans, the Incas, the Egyptians and many other cultures left the world beautiful buildings and sculptures. The hanging gardens of Babylon are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Why should the 151 year-old park be encumbered by the publicity stunt of hanging curtains on its pathways? Although we do not have precise records from ancient Babylon, we are fortunate that Christo's plans, designs and sketches will be available, in limited editions, for purchase by the public. Replicas may even be offered in gift shops, with profits going to a foundation to benefit the environment.
 
I support public art in New York City parks. When I was commissioner under Mayor Koch, we had a great exhibition of Henry Moore sculptures at the pond in the southeast corner of Central Park. At another time, we held a citywide festival of outdoor art and sculpture. The art we chose complemented the landscape. It did not dominate it. Five or 10 of Christo's gates would be fine in Central Park, but no man's ego should be rewarded with 7,500 polyps on the city's finest natural landscape.

Recent years on this planet have been tragically replete with human conflict as well as monuments to ego and folly. Fortunately, Christo in winter is among the least of them. And is it not too much for us to demand of an honest, competent and dedicated mayor who is also a lover of art that he display perfect taste in evaluating artificial intrusions into natural beauty?

None of us gets everything right, neither mayors, nor artists, nor commentators. If there is snow in February, the orange sheets may give the park the appearance of a creamsicle. People may lap it up. You never know for sure. But to conservationists, the 7,500 gates, 16 feet tall, are  particularly invasive of the parkland, and their acceptance should be understood as deference to realpolitik. Does anyone believe that Central Park's natural beauty will be enhanced when it is gussied up by an artist-promoter team's 7,500 erect configurations?

What message does this exhibition send to those New Yorkers who treasure Central Park as it was made by God, with assistance from Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux?