I finally saw the Christo art piece, "the gates," and it made me angry.
I was in NYC for an interview, and I decided to go, just because I wanted to see one of his works of art (all of which make me angry) with my own eyes.
What Christo does is put man-made objects in natural settings. He has wrapped the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris in plastic, covered the Reichstag in Berlin in grey cloth, stretched a miles-long bedsheet in California (multiple people injured), put a bunch of giant umbrellas in a line in Japan (one death caused), and wrapped some tropical islands in pink plastic sheets (thousands of fish and other marine life killed). What's next? Wrapping up the Space Needle in Seattle like a barber pole? Stretching yellow fabric between the spires of the temples of Angkor Wat? Wait, maybe he can paint a set of von Dutch flames on the Pyramids.
Ecch.
His latest project, "the gates," involves putting 7500 PVC pipes shaped into archways, wrapped in orange tarps all over the 23-mile long expanse of Central Park. I saw T-shirts that said "The Gates 1979-2005," which reflects the amount of time Christo has tried to get permission to do this.
There is a REASON why every NYC mayor since 1979 has refused to do this lives-disrupting project, and then this mincing ponce of a Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, boards the bus to Cluelessville, and approves it. Someone who has never known what it is like to really work hard for a living will never be able to relate to the day-to-day reality of most people.
Christo's "art" makes me angry because of the reactions of his supporters when dissent is voiced. I do not want to be told that I don't have the correct aesthetic sensibility or "vision" to really appreciate what Christo is trying to accomplish. I also have to hear that annoying "well, what IS art, anyway" mantra. I am sick of this attitude. I can pick up a pencil and paper and draw something that is recognizeable. I wonder how many of those sychophants Christ drafts into helping him for free on his big projects can say that. I have sold artwork I have done, and even done comic book illustration. Do not dare tell me I have no aestehtic sensibility!
I can go to the Philadelphia or Metropolitan Art Museum, and be taken to another place, looking at the mastery of Vermeer, Renoir, or Rembrandt. I can go to MOMA and be mezmerized by Chuck Close. Christo's stuff is just pure crap, that he has managed to hornswoggle everyone into thinking it's art.
The latest project from Christo cost a little over 21 Million. Although the money was all raised privately, and designated solely for use for a 16-day installation that will then be taken down and thrown away, I am left feeling annoyed. How many schools could benefit from an influx of that kind of money? how many problems could be made to go away forever with 21 Mil?
Our society tends to mollycoddle artists, accepting behavior from them that we would never tolerate from the general population. I have seen an artist throw his wine glass on a gallery floor, scattering broken glass everywhere, in a room full of people with open toed shoes. Some people were hit by the bits of glass. I remarked to my friend,"what the hell is wrong with that guy?" I got told, "oh, he's like that. He smashes the glass when he gives a toast." Total disregard for others, and everybody put up with it because he was an artist. Imagine the reaction if a "regular guy" threw a glass on a barroom floor.
Christo does this, just on a much larger scale. He creates these giant artworks, disrupting the lives of the people who live and work in the locations where he sets them up. He pursues his latest idea with single-minded determination. He at least is a good salesman, as he pitches his latest set of emperor's new clothes to an effete bunch of tiresome elitists who have no clue how the world really works, and who do not voice disapproval, and dare not say that what they really think is that it's just all a bunch of pretentious crap, because they fear the reaction of others in their social circle.
Besides, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein already did the whole repetition on a large scale, and did it better, and first. All a second-rater like Christo has done is sold a bill of goods to a gullible elitist mayor, and made Central Park look like a 23-mile long car wash, with tarps from the Home Depot.
