the gates

As I said, I went to go see The Gates by Christo in Central Park yesterday. It's nice to finally see his work. In general I really liked it. It's nice to see free and public works of art. And considering the cost of the exhibit (millions) it's surprising it was free. Rumor has it some scoundrels were charging people as they walked into the park.

As a piece of art, it is pretty good. I like his other stuff more. Most of his work entails canvassing some natural site with pink or blue plastic. There's a certain amount of awe invoked when looking at him covering an entire bridge. This was different in that you don't take in the entire size of the exhibit by walking through the park. You just see pieces of it. So it was less than awe inspiring but wonderful to see all the same.

The other piece of criticism I will agree with is unintentional. The choice of color, orange, does make the entire park look like a gigantic construction zone. White or pink or yellow would have avoided that.

There have been a lot of reviews asking if this sort of thing is art? To me these people entirely miss the point of something like this. If you don't like it then call it bad art but don't question whether it is art. It's art because the artist said it is art. Any other point of view is pretentious and goes against everything art is about in my mind.