Christo and Jeanne-Claude: the Art of Interference in Central Park
Vladimir Belogolovsky
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Many years ago, I heard these names for the first time on the news. I couldn’t quite understand the meaning of their giant umbrellas, scattered by the thousands—blue ones in Japan; yellow ones, in California. The scale and spectacle of the fantastic project forever ignited my curiosity, and led me, many years later, to their studio.
The couple owns an industrial-looking, five-storey walkup with very high ceilings and squeaking stairs in SoHo. Serving as a warehouse, a gallery, an apartment and an office, each space occupies a full floor. Christo’s painting studio is at the very top. He has worked there 15 to 17 hours daily, without assistants, for the last 40 years.
At the high point of their careers and both at age 69, Christo and Jeanne-Claude appear as unassuming as a couple of college freshmen. He, in his ripped pair of jeans, lays comfortably on the floor, propped against an old sofa. She, in a shapeless gown and crowned by a mane of freely floating orange hair, reclines comfortably next to him, and hands me a small box. I open it, and jump with surprise as the damn beast springs open, triggering a burst of laughter.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Why did you choose to use fabric to become your medium for exploration?
Jeanne-Claude: Usually people ask us: “Why do you wrap things?” But you are right it has to do more with fabric than wrapping.
Christo: First, all of our projects are temporary works of art. This is the essential part of our work and that is our aesthetical decision. And the uniqueness of our work is that we will never do the same project again. In other words, there will never again be another Umbrella project, another Surrounded Islands, another Parliament Wrapped, and so on. Each project has a unique proposition. A very important part of our projects is the fragility of material. All of our projects are very light, they are very nomadic. We try to transform the site through the use of the cloth. The fabric is the translator of the flickering experience that will go away. All of these projects are very dynamic and are always in motion. Unlike stone sculpture, they follow every movement of the wind.
Jeanne-Claude: And the color is constantly changing as well. The fabric is like the second skin. Of course, we are not the first artists to use fabric. Egyptians, Romans and Renaissance artists used fabric as well. (Jeanne-Claude reaches for a postcard of a mural by Giotto). But we are using real fabric, not in stone, marble or bronze.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: When did you first start using fabric in your work?
Christo: That is from 1958—one of the earliest pieces. (Christo points to a couple of tiny bottles wrapped in canvas). In the mid 1950s I experimented with wrinkled and lacquered surfaces in my paintings. Then I started wrapping very ordinary objects, such as bottles, boxes, furniture, toys, piles of magazines and so on. I was fascinated by the transformation of objects by simply wrapping them with fabric and plastic. I was intrigued by the idea of a missing presence.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Why do you think your projects attract so much attention?
Jeanne-Claude: Because they are very beautiful and people need beauty. Also the temporary character of these projects makes people come fast. If I told you, “Look, there is a rainbow over there.” You would never say. “I will look at it tomorrow.” People need something that is unique in the world. Christo and I are very touched by the expressions “Once in a lifetime” and “Once upon a time.”
Christo: Beauty is the essential part of our culture. The reason why people like it is because of the visual attraction. It brings a real joy. I remember how people walked around the wrapped Reichstag and how they wanted to touch the fabric. Notice that you never see people walking on the streets of New York touching buildings. But the fabric is very teasing and it provokes movement.
Jeanne-Claude: We create works of art, joy and beauty. We do not create symbols and messages. Our works have no purpose at all, except for simply being works of art. When people look at our work they can experience beauty and breathe freedom.
Christo: An artist wants to be absolutely irresponsible and free. Our work is about freedom and people realize that.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: What is the inspiration behind The Gates for Central Park?
Jeanne-Claude: Central Park is the inspiration.
Christo: Essentially, it is people walking, especially in New York.
Jeanne-Claude: It is extraordinary how many people are walking on the streets of New York. We believe that New York is the most [walked] city in the world. So we thought about having a project on the sidewalk to explore this idea. But we knew that we would never get a permit for such a project. So we abandoned this idea. In 1978 we did a smaller project in Kansas City, Missouri, called Wrapped Walkways in a local park. In New York, people walking leisurely can only happen in a park.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: And what better park than Central Park!
Jeanne-Claude: Well, for us, there is no other park.
Christo: Of course, there are other parks in Manhattan and other boroughs. But Central Park is unique because it is surrounded by hundreds of rectangular city blocks. The overall form of the park is also a rectangle. And the form of each gate reflects the form of the park. Imagine how the fabric is set in the rectangular frame, moving whimsically and capriciously in all directions – reflecting on the soft lines of the park’s walkways and organic vegetation.
Jeanne-Claude: Even the name of this project, “The Gates,” comes from the park. The openings in the stone wall around the park are called the Gates, even though they are not really gates. They are just openings, but the designers of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux called them the Gates.
Christo: These Gates are processional and ceremonial and that is a sense that we wanted to carry in our project, where you will see how the fabric moves from one gate to the next. You know, each time we do a project we do a life-size test. In October 2002 we built 18 gates. In The Central Park there will be 7,500 gates, 16 feet tall and 23 different widths, to accommodate a variety of walkways and low branches.
Jeanne-Claude: It is also important that we are not going to make any holes in Central Park. That is why we bought more than 5,000 tons of steel to secure The Gates against the wind. During the test we used different thicknesses of fabric and different hues of saffron color so that we could make an aesthetic choice of every detail – the fabric panels, the polls and so on (Jeanne-Claude slips the video into her VCR and starts commenting on the footage depicting the life size test that the artists performed in October, 2003 in Washington). There will be no two panels that will ever look the same because the flow of air will move through one of The Gates and interfere with the next, making each fabric unique. Now, imagine 7,500 gates along 23 miles of walkways!
Vladimir Belogolovsky: What about snow? None of your drawings show it. Don’t you expect the snow in February?
Christo: In the exhibition in The Metropolitan Museum there were no drawings that showed the snow. But we do anticipate the snow. It will be very beautiful. We hope it will fall.
Jeanne-Claude: But we don’t want a lot of snow because we signed a 43-page contract with the City of New York. According to this contract, if there is snow during the installation of the Gates, we have to remove it. So we want some snow, but we don’t want it to become a major obstacle for our workers.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: How many people will you need to help you realize this project?
Jeanne-Claude: There will be approximately 700 non-skilled workers. Each worker will be paid by us $5.40 per hour.
Christo: They will install The Gates, monitor them for 16 days in shifts, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and then remove them. Also, these people will distribute 1,000,000 free fabric samples for souvenirs and answer questions from hundreds of thousands of visitors. At night there will be police and security in the park.
Jeanne-Claude: We are very proud that our Gates will be one work of art shared by all people who live around the park. This means that from one of the richest streets in the world, 59th Street, to one of the poorest streets, in Harlem, 110th Street, The Gates will be shared as one work of art.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Besides The Gates do you have any other ongoing projects?
Christo: Usually all our projects are intertwined. But as soon as we get permission to realize a particular project we put everything else on hold.
Jeanne-Claude: Right now all our love, energy and money is going to The Gates.
Christo: There is no day, hour or minute to be lost. We are only working on The Gates.
Jeanne-Claude: I will repeat my sentence because it is very important: All of our time, love, energy and money are going to The Gates and nothing else. And when I say nothing else, I mean I have a toothache for nine days and it is only next week that I’ll have time to go to the dentist.
Christo: You have a toothache? So why didn’t you make an appointment?
Jeanne-Claude: Thank you dear, I already made an appointment.
Christo: Why didn’t you tell me before (quietly in French)?
Vladimir Belogolovsky: The Gates is going to be a very expensive project, right?
Jeanne-Claude: This project is like a child to us. It will cost whatever it needs to cost. We hope that it will be fewer than 20 million dollars. In addition to that we are donating three million dollars to the Central Park Conservancy.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: What will happen to The Gates after the project is over?
Jeanne-Claude: Like all of our projects, we try to recycle most of the materials. The aluminum will be melted and will be used for soda cans, airplane parts and so on. The vinyl will be also melted. The steel, of course, will be steel again and the fabric will be shredded, compacted and made into underlayment for underneath carpeting.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Didn’t you receive propositions from people who wanted to buy individual gates?
Jeanne-Claude: Absolutely! We get these propositions after every project. A lot of people wanted to buy our umbrellas.
Christo: One gate is not a work of art; one umbrella is not a work of art.
Jeanne-Claude: We never accept commercial money. We never sell postcards, posters, books or souvenirs.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Let’s dream for a second. What if you were asked to sell all 7,500 gates to be installed in a private park?
Jeanne-Claude: Well, we don’t know the answer to that!
Christo: I know the answer. We will never do that. Because even 7,500 gates is not a work of art. The orange color fabric is not a work of art. It is the whole setting – Central Park with its walkways, lawns, trees, people and the gates. The same is with the umbrellas. The art is the whole setting – the bridges, the highways, the rivers, the valleys, the churches, the farmer’s houses and the umbrellas. So, one umbrella is not a work of art in the backyard of Mr. Smith. We received many letters from all over the world, asking us to install The Gates in their local park and all sorts of ideas. We received many commercial proposals to appear on television and so on. We were offered one million dollars, two million dollars… Not us. Go find another artist.
Jeanne-Claude: Christo, but what if we are offered to install all The Gates again for 100 million dollars?
Christo: We will say no.
Jeanne-Claude: 200 million dollars?
Christo: Each project has a very unique quality. It can not happen again or anywhere else.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: How do you usually come up with ideas for new projects?
Christo: Each project has its own story. There is no recipe. For example, The Umbrellas is like a diptych. It is a painting that depicts the differences between two of the richest countries in the world on two sides of the Pacific.
Jeanne-Claude: The Reichstag represented the relationship between East and West. There is no other building in the world that has that. Any project there would involve the cooperation of the Soviet, French, American, and British armies as well as both East and West German governments. It was a building that Hitler hated and he never had parliamentary sessions there. I’m not from the East like Christo, but I’m Jewish and for me, whatever Hitler hated I love!
Christo: Sometimes we imagine projects for a specific site, like Central Park or Pont Neuf. But for projects like The Umbrellas or Valley Certain we had an idea first and we had to find the right site. To find the right place for Over the River we looked at 89 possible river sites in the Rocky Mountains. So some times the idea comes first, sometimes the site comes first. We always choose public spaces for our work and that is why they trigger such intense discussions. Nobody, for example, discusses a painting before an artist decides to paint it, but everybody discuses new airports, new bridges, skyscrapers, highways and so on. In this same way, our projects have the element of architecture and urban planning. Our projects need to be accommodated and they cause gentle disturbances for a few days. We create interference.
Jeanne-Claude: That’s what it is – the art of interference!
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Your work is somewhat reminiscent of a grandiose Soviet parade or a celebration. Is it at all influenced by Russian art and culture?
Christo: The art that flourished in the Soviet Union until the late 1920’s, especially temporary installations, propaganda art, slogans, theater and so on is very important to us. The other very important point in our work is that it is about freedom and no one can buy it. That is why all of our projects are temporary. No one can possess them. Freedom is the enemy of possession! These works just go away and they have no reason to exist.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: How would you define art?
Jeanne-Claude: Well, the only good definition of art was given by Groucho Marx, one of the Marx brothers. He was asked by a journalist: “Do you know what art is?” And he said: “Yes of course, art is short for Arthur.” And that is the only possible definition of art, because it is so many things. For Christo and I, art is about joy and beauty, but for example in the art of Francis Bacon there is no beauty and joy, and he was a fantastic artist. So how do you define what art is? It can not be defined.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Many contemporary architects think that architecture is about breaking conventions. Do you think art is about that?
Jeanne-Claude: There was an Italian painter Giorgio Morandi. His whole life he painted beautiful bottles and only bottles. What conventions did he break? And he was a good artist. You see, it makes the lives of art historians and journalists much easier if they put labels – this art is figurative, this is abstract and this is earth art. Labels are very important, but only for bottles of vine.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: After realizing so many projects what have you learned?
Jeanne-Claude: What did we learn? First, we learned that we should not rely on anyone. Second lesson, if we rely only on ourselves we cannot do anything. So what did we learn?
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Nothing?
Jeanne-Claude: Nothing! You see, every project is like an expedition, an adventure. And in order to realize it we have to learn about the local people, the local history, traditions and so on. It is very important, if we want to get the permits. For example, our Running Fence project had to cross 59 ranches in California. Christo was mostly in New York, working on his drawings so we could pay for this project and I was with 59 families learning how they live. Why should they know about our art if we don’t know anything about how they live? So, I became the world’s leading expert on how to pasteurize milk, how to make cheese, about the artificial insemination of cows and so on. Of course, when we were working in Paris and in Berlin, people there could care less about artificial insemination. We had to learn other things. So each project we learn something. And I hope when you come to Central Park in February you’ll learn something, too.
