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March 17, 2005
Blogging the Experience
"It's only the gates. A work of art of joy and beauty," -- Jeanne-Claude.
When their creators, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, declared that the Gates had no meaning, they were, in this writers estimation, attempting to get the viewing public to ignore the art-world preoccupation with capital M "meaning" and instead think of art as a catalyst for experience, connection, and pleasure.
My favorite personal essay on the Gates comes from David Patrick Columbia's "New York Social Diary." It's a marvelous explaination of why the Gates are great. Plus, he makes his observations while lunching with NY art-world celebs on a fabulous Central Park South terrace--stunning photos of the bird's-eye view included.
"Meaningful Connections" Blog comes up first on a Google search for "Christo's Gates." It has a small selection of reader experiences. Dan Zukowski's entry was particularly interesting. It documents the conversation he had with himself as he attempted to ignore the hype and experience that Gates as honestly as possible. Here is an excerpt.
Crossing Madison Avenue and 96th street - two blocks from Central Park:
Looming larger - I like the orange color - saffron they call it. Now I see lots of gates. Nice - This is interesting. OK OK A big population of gates. OK Look at that! I see my first shot. See those three gates against the big tree - OK- I feel engaged.
And there were several blogs by people whose experience of the Gates was only through second-hand information, the photographs and stories of others.
Posted by kim white at March 17, 2005 11:22 AM