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Art or
con art? A festival or an offence? Sacred or silly? Jolly
good fun or a sneaky snide joke? Whatever one may decide,
THE GATES—Christo’s orange stretch of “fabric” that lined 23
miles of Central Park walkways in February (2005)—was surely
a phenomenon that succeeded in frenzy feeding our shallow,
starved-for-distraction culture. Of course, like Chinese
food, after consuming the meal, one is hungry an hour later.
[That’s a New York joke, friends]. But viewed for a moment
as a serious phenomenon, whatever one does conclude,
individually, is determined by each of us via our value
systems. The response of every viewer will be in direct
relationship to his or her own subjective, personal values,
whether affirmed or assaulted by that artificial
installation running through New York’s most treasured
mini-countryside. On the other hand, there is an objective
artistic judgment to be made. So how do we arrive at that?
For
starters, let’s quickly consider “a Chinese menu” of
possible definitions in order to choose a category for THE
GATES from which to critique its success or failure. The
first definition (of art) is my own, taken from a 1997
speech I gave at Hillsdale College in Michigan, titled THE
FOURTH “R” in EDUCATION, which was subsequently published in
Vital Speeches of the Day. The rest are from the
Oxford English Dictionary.
Art: an
intelligible representation of the world and humankind that
manifests an artist’s conceptual visions in perceptual,
aesthetic form.
Entertainment: The action of occupying (a person’s)
attention agreeably… That which affords interest or
amusement. A public performance of exhibition intended to
interest or amuse.
Amusement: Distinction or diversion of the attention…;
beguiling, deception. Idle time-wasting diversion or
entertainment.
Novelty:
Something new or unusual; a novel thing or occurrence.
Annoyance: The action of annoying, vexing, troubling,
molesting or injuring; molestation.
Offense:
The action of attacking or assailing. The act or fact of
offending; wounding or displeasing the feelings of another;
usually viewed as it affects the person being offended;
hence… displeasure or annoyance or resentment caused
(voluntarily or involuntarily) to a person.
Of
course, Christo’s installation was voluntary (meaning
intentional), and intention counts in our choice of
categorization for judgment of his work. In fact, the
question—and it is a question—of intent is one of the
reasons many New Yorkers declined to spend time going to
witness something we considered to be an annoying (albeit
temporary) “molestation” of our precious urban/country
retreat. For many of us, it seemed like nothing more than an
orange stain, preventing our normal enjoyment of the park.
I have,
however, reports from people who did go. I also have seen
pictures of the display and have prior knowledge of
Christo’s presentations on which to base my reactions. But
just as I, personally, don’t need to see TV programs that
glamorize the Mafia or Broadway shows that find Hitler
funny, I know that I am not interested in any of his
projects, that there is no value exchange for me and that,
at root, there is something very wrong at play from both an
artistic and philosophical point of view.
The title
itself was abstruse: Gates (usually swinging contraptions)
serve to open or block an entrance or exit path to or from
something. In Central Park they installed many miles and
spent millions of dollars creating a glaring orange corridor
of some industrial fiberglass or “rip stop” nylon chute of
fabric, which lined the already-existing walkways of the
park and led to nothing but its own end. It wasn’t even akin
to the yellow brick road that led to a phony Wizard of Oz;
it didn’t “go” anywhere for any purpose except to outline
the thoughtfully and aesthetically designed paths originally
designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, whose motive was to
create a “natural” country haven as a retreat in the midst
of an increasingly fast-moving urban environment for
inhabitants dearly in need of respite—Olmstead, by the way,
didn’t even approve of skating rinks or any man-made objects
that would intrude on his carefully designed “natural”
environment, so we can imagine what he would have thought of
this stunt.
To be
fair, though, the construction did take a great deal of
planning, time and effort, and the “fabric” did sometimes
blow in the wind. And I’m told that the plastic post and
beam structures that held the fabric in place exactly
matched the same color of orange as the fabric. Now that’s a
technological feat? So should we give Christo and his
red-haired wife-partner credit there? Maybe her hair should
have been changed to orange for the occasion?
“But,
even though it was considered ‘spiritual’ by some art
reviewers, I found nothing ethereal or spiritual about the
whole production,” an older male writing colleague reported,
“even though they said the color was ‘saffron,’ evoking the
color of Buddhist monks’ robes. It really was orange. Yet,
on some level, it was an aesthetic experience. The sky was
blue, the snow was white and the trees, bare of leaves, were
brown, so the color combination was actually quite
striking.” His most telling observation, however, was that
all the spectators seemed to have had a good time. “A sort
of sixties-type ‘Happening.’ A gala get-together.”
Another
middle-aged friend of mine (who, incidentally, tips the ends
of her long blonde hair with touches of orange) did not
visit “the atrocity” on principle: “Millions of dollars
spent on a ridiculous folly! Why would I go? The money would
have been better spent on extra soup kitchens with hot meals
for the homeless in the middle of winter. At least, then,
there would be some good come from it on a human level.
Besides, the Park is supposed to be nature. So I might go
for a walk in the snow to be with nature in the middle of
our rat race that is
New York, but to walk through a bunch of goopy fabric that looks
like monochromatic laundry hanging out? Give me a break!”
A
Turkish-American friend (in her twenties) decided she didn’t
want to see the spectacle—“too obviously commercial and
self-promoting!” But one day she happened to find herself at
Columbus Circle and thought: Well, why not? I’ll take a
look. Three minutes later, she stomped out of the park
muttering, “We have enough construction going on in New
York. I don’t need to see any more orange!” [Steel netting
and barriers surrounding construction sites in NYC are
orange—did the “artist” think of that? I doubt it. But she
did]
A
Japanese friend mused that the post and beam construction
reminded her of the Shinto gates (sans fabric) that provide
an entrance to a particular temple in Kyoto, so that was
nice. But my Italian hairdresser was furious, not at the
billowing fabric that gave him a great emotional rush but at
all the people he heard who kept asking, “What does it
mean?” “Everything doesn’t have to have a purpose or a
meaning,” he declared. “If it makes you feel good, that’s
enough!” Of course, the meaning was passed out in written
form to any passersby who wanted it, and people were
stationed here and there throughout the route to explain
what it was all about. The visitors I know who read the
literature or talked to the explainers couldn’t figure out
quite what any of the meaning meant, but it was there for
the taking and talking. Finally, a teacher I know, who walks
through the park every day to work, found the daily,
physical construction of THE GATES more interesting than the
finished product.
The one
common denominator I heard from all those I queried, who
actually enjoyed wandering around the phenomenon was that
the event was fun in a lighthearted party atmosphere sort of
way and everybody attending seemed to have a good time.
So what’s
the problem? How could this “creation” be offensive or
threatening to anyone? It provided a destination point for
out-of-towners who came to collect memories and pictures for
back-home-cocktail-chatter and New Yorkers who would rather
have been in the Caribbean but had already read the Sunday
paper and seen all the awful movies at $10.50 per ticket,
nibbled at $5.00-a-bag popcorn and had nothing better to do,
or else New Yorkers who were just curious and wanted their
own first-hand opinions.
So how
can I postulate that this spectacle of sorts was
artistically and philosophically wrong? A couple of reasons:
If you love nature and do not wish the most important nature
spot in New York City to be “molested,” even temporarily by
a frivolous intervention, you were prevented from enjoying
the park for sixteen days. Or if you love serious art that
is intelligible and does have ideational content as well as
aesthetic beauty, you will be offended by the transformation
of the walkways of a beautiful, purposeful “natural” and
cherished Central Park into an avenue of orange that the
tastemakers have termed “art.”
Values.
If you want to call THE GATES free amusement and a
fortnight’s “fun” distraction, then the project was a
success. Fine. But don’t call it art! This is the crucial
point. Call it a party, but don’t call it art because that
denigrates the definition of true art. And that is dangerous
to our culture because it encourages the elimination of
objective artistic standards, turns art criticism into
promotional commercialism and throws the whole subject of
art into a free-for-all grab bag.
Therein
lay the peril and the offense. Whether Christo’s intent was
to give a bright orange public party, or to put up an
artificial entity so that once it came down people would
appreciate real nature better, or to nihilistically destroy
any definition of art altogether, I do not know because I
don’t believe any rationale that these type of “artists”
give. Is Christo malicious? Is he consciously attacking
objective standards of “fine” art? Or is he just having
childish, impish fun, thumbing his nose at the seriousness
of anything at all, all the while promoting himself as his
greatest product and (I am told) making money from sales of
his many drawings of projects to collectors, plus (I am told
by a friend whose business partner owns one) sales of framed
pieces of the “fabric” itself.
Well,
fine. Free enterprise, caveat emptor and all that. After
all, he doesn’t physically hurt anyone or any thing—except
for the time when his umbrellas flew away and nearly
decapitated onlookers—and his installations are always of
short duration, so even if he offends our values, it’s not
for long. But the fact remains: whether voluntarily or
involuntarily, he does succeed in offending not only serious
art but also values as such, thereby helping to confuse and
degrade the whole subject of values on a most fundamental
level. This undeniable fact is neither fun nor funny.
I can’t
resist suggesting that if Christo’s act had been billed as a
circus—“Banners and Circuses,” maybe, instead of “Bread and
Circuses”—it might be judged by more appropriate criteria.
But we still run into a snag don’t we? Because even a circus
act requires specific skills and employment of craft, and
the performers can be judged objectively by audience
appreciation commensurate to the excellence of the act; that
is to say if an acrobat flies gracefully through the air and
catches the bar, he has succeeded and deserves applause, but
if no one laughs at a clown, he has clearly failed and
everybody, including the clown, is unhappy.
Finally,
I will pose one psychological reason as to why so many from
so far wished to witness and be part of THE GATES: a
psychological desire that has caused people throughout
history and throughout the world to want to witness and “be
part of “ one-time-only experiences, like the (now unlawful)
Indian ritual of suttee, the execution of a satanic heretic,
the launching of a first space ship, or the last race of a
famous boat—All subjects of interest, of course, are
determined by one’s value system as to what one wants to
witness and be part of . But the psychological urge, I
believe, comes simply from the wish is to declare: “I was
there!” “I have the story to tell my grandchildren and/or
pictures of me in front of the ‘whatever’ to prove I was
there!” Oh, glory!
So ponder
the definitions above and see what you think of those now
media-fossilized GATES that no longer exist in real life
(except that the remaining fabric has gone into a recycling
bin, so it can come back in another form—Ah,
reincarnation!). You do not need to see certain so-called
“art” to judge it, if it’s this far afield, especially “art”
sadly misplaced in actual fields of nature, so carefully
designed by an architect with all aesthetic and
horticultural sincerity.
Art and
the meaning of serious art are crucial, life-serving values,
nourishing our personal spiritual existence and our cultural
identity. We must not let charlatans walk in our midst,
lauded for the wrong reasons and without criticism from
those who seek not celebrity (like the rest of them) but
truth to values.
To end my
commentary where it began, on another Chinese note, just for
my own fun and symmetry’s sake: a Chinese-born friend of
mine took her young niece to see THE GATES because she
thought the girl might want to report the event during “Show
and Tell” in school the next day. At first, she was just
bored. But then she was reminded of the
Great Wall of China (which, of course, had been built for serious purposes,
not for frivolity), and her boredom turned to
annoyance—“Those orange things had no significance or
purpose,” she told me. “A waste of time.” She also told me
that when she asked her American-born niece how she liked
THE GATES, the ten-year-old child responded: “Well, could we
go over to F.A O. Schwartz (the most beloved and lavish
children’s toy store in
New
York)? I like it better there.”
The
following excerpts from Alexandra York’s novel, CROSSPOINTS
A Novel of Choice, pertain directly to the criticism in the
above article:
From
Chapter Seven:
In
college,
Leon found
the artistic outlet he needed: “constructions” or "stunt"
art, he called it. He was learning at last (and to his
relief) that art need not aspire to be beautiful or
uplifting but would better succeed by simply being different
and unexpected… or as offensive as possible. Laughing at the
idea of love and having sex with countless females had
canceled (and corrected) his childhood idealism. Now he
found he could also laugh at art and mindscrew everyone in
the art world, too. Once one caught onto the irony of it
all, the rawest and most distorted real replaced the highest
and most beautiful ideal with shocking ease in every part of
life. That was what the twentieth century was all about,
wasn't it? And the twenty-first? Cashing in, of course.
Leon was finally, completely, happy. In life and in art. His acerbic wit
and contagious good humor became a trademark for him. In
college, he "created" everything from a gigantic sunbaked
pretzel twisting through a
Harlem housing project to a mammoth hot-air "kite" tethered to an abandoned
building in the
Bronx. He constructed a ladder, which led viewers to a tree house to look
through a knothole at a deeply pitted “earthwork” he had dug
into a hill a mile away across the
Hudson
River and listen to Rap music amplified through tree branches hardwired for
sound. And he laughed to himself at the people, critics and
public alike, who actually climbed the ladder to see his
"art" and attend to the bruising lyrics that turned the
grotesque charade into a multi-media event.
From
Chapter Twenty-two:
“You’re
wrong,” he said. “One could ignore it. And one should! But
no one ever has. It’s a fair trade. My art is a joke to me
and a commodity to them. But they are the fools, not I.
They’ve climbed ladders to see it, they’ve walked around it
so as not to muddy it with their shoes, they’ve stood in the
cold while I burned it at a ‘public corroding ceremony’.
They don’t want art, they want theatricality: something to
write about, something to prattle about at cocktail parties.
I give it to them. One critic, for years, called me the
‘last Enfant Terrible of Art’. He didn’t give a pig’s eye
about what I made. He loved me because I was a brat who gave
him his headlines, his reputation. But what have they all
given me in return? Their independent judgment. And why is
that? Because what once were called standards by which to
judge no longer exist, proof positive that most of the last
century defined art as just what an artist does. And who is
an artist, you might ask? Why anyone who says he’s an artist
and can get a few other influential people to believe him.
It’s all a big joke! Why shouldn’t I cash in on such a
society? Some people still think art means something. Some
brainwashed fools even really think that a heap of horseshit
means something if it’s varnished and shoveled into a
gallery or a museum. But at least I’m honest with myself. It
all just a big, sad mercenary joke!”
Copyright
© 2005 Alexandra York. All rights reserved.
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