Open Air Art #3: Intuitively Creative Thinking and Central Park
Christo and Jean-Claude seem to embrace the concept of their installation as a sort of performance piece: here today and gone tomorrow. In the New York Times last Saturday, Jean-Claude was probably wise to discuss its meaning in purely Sienfeldian terms: “What is it for? It’s for nothing. It’s only a work of art. Nothing more,” she said.
A city is the combined energy of the many. In New York, energy is generated from an unfathomable depth of creative and entrepreneurial activities. Examples of intuitively creative thinking might be media heralded, like Christo and Jean-Claude. Or it might not be perceived as coming from the same wellspring as the artistic class. For example, in the 1980s, intuitively creative thinking resurrected a dying Central Park. Unlike the ephemeral installation we will be enjoying next week, the park advocates of the 1980s created something deeply purposeful and lasting.
Central Park is the gem of New York City not only because of its size but also because of its centrality. If it was being planned with today’s public review processes, traffic engineers would warn us of terrible gridlock to come from such centrality. Yet, today there are only five transverse streets along the seven-mile length of Central Park, and, in my experience, the buses seem to glide through the park at all hours without a traffic jam. Central Park seems to fit in place like a diamond in a Tiffany setting.
Central Park is shaped in a rectangle proportionate to the shape of Manhattan island itself. It’s a walkable distance from a wide range of neighborhoods. For example, from my home in Yorkville near 1st Avenue, it’s a brisk walk to the E. 85th St. entry. If someone living near Times Square, another person near Harlem’s Apollo Theater, and I all walked to Central Park at the same time, we’d each arrive at the same park in about 10 minutes, in spite of coming from neighborhoods that are miles apart. It’s open space that feels like it’s a part of the city, not an escape from the city.
Today, I rode through Central Park on the 96th St. cross-town bus. From the window, I saw what looked like orange football goalposts lined up in the melting patches of snow. Christo’s and Jean-Claude’s crew of workers had begun raising the gates which will be unfurled at week’s end.
Christo’s and Jean-Claude’s full name for their installation is The Gates: Central Park, New York, 1979-2005. This 26-year period marks the span of time from when they proposed the project to when it will finally come to exist. However, the full title shouldn’t be mistaken as a tale about the slow wheels of government and the persistence of visionary art. Instead, it is homage to the fact that in 26 years Central Park was reborn.
Back in 1980, Central Park was in no shape to be turned over to Christo and Jean-Claude. Central Park had gone to seed. Its bridges and fountains were defaced and in disrepair, its landscaping and trails wasted from neglect.
Fortunately, park advocates had their priorities straight. Mounting an audacious art installation was not an idea whose time had come. When the City rejected the request to build The Gates in 1981, Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis concluded in his report that it was “in the wrong place…at the wrong time…and in the wrong scale.”
In 1980, the Central Park Conservancy was formed. Over the years came the fundraising and rehabilitation. First things first required focusing on the resodding of the lawns, repairing the fountains, and thousands of other tasks. Piece by piece, the park was returned from ruin to a new splendor.
In 2003, in the Wall St. Journal, Gordon Davis praised the first Central Park administrator, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers and the first chairman of the Central Park Conservancy Bill Beinecke as key figures in the park’s resurrection.
It was a good, quick ride through the park on the 96th St. bus today. Christo and Jean-Claude have done their tasks well, and their crews are raising the gates as planned. The work-of-art-in-progress is in its final stage. For the rest of us, all we’ll have to do is come out and enjoy it. As Jean-Claude said, “It’s only a work of art. Nothing more.”
It is a paradox of sorts, but by pushing forward with the singular intuitive vision to fully restore these acres of open space, the park’s advocates helped release the spirits of urban revitalization that today can be felt in every corner of the city.
A city is the combined energy of the many. In New York, energy is generated from an unfathomable depth of creative and entrepreneurial activities. Examples of intuitively creative thinking might be media heralded, like Christo and Jean-Claude. Or it might not be perceived as coming from the same wellspring as the artistic class. For example, in the 1980s, intuitively creative thinking resurrected a dying Central Park. Unlike the ephemeral installation we will be enjoying next week, the park advocates of the 1980s created something deeply purposeful and lasting.
Central Park is the gem of New York City not only because of its size but also because of its centrality. If it was being planned with today’s public review processes, traffic engineers would warn us of terrible gridlock to come from such centrality. Yet, today there are only five transverse streets along the seven-mile length of Central Park, and, in my experience, the buses seem to glide through the park at all hours without a traffic jam. Central Park seems to fit in place like a diamond in a Tiffany setting.
Central Park is shaped in a rectangle proportionate to the shape of Manhattan island itself. It’s a walkable distance from a wide range of neighborhoods. For example, from my home in Yorkville near 1st Avenue, it’s a brisk walk to the E. 85th St. entry. If someone living near Times Square, another person near Harlem’s Apollo Theater, and I all walked to Central Park at the same time, we’d each arrive at the same park in about 10 minutes, in spite of coming from neighborhoods that are miles apart. It’s open space that feels like it’s a part of the city, not an escape from the city.
Today, I rode through Central Park on the 96th St. cross-town bus. From the window, I saw what looked like orange football goalposts lined up in the melting patches of snow. Christo’s and Jean-Claude’s crew of workers had begun raising the gates which will be unfurled at week’s end.
Christo’s and Jean-Claude’s full name for their installation is The Gates: Central Park, New York, 1979-2005. This 26-year period marks the span of time from when they proposed the project to when it will finally come to exist. However, the full title shouldn’t be mistaken as a tale about the slow wheels of government and the persistence of visionary art. Instead, it is homage to the fact that in 26 years Central Park was reborn.
Back in 1980, Central Park was in no shape to be turned over to Christo and Jean-Claude. Central Park had gone to seed. Its bridges and fountains were defaced and in disrepair, its landscaping and trails wasted from neglect.
Fortunately, park advocates had their priorities straight. Mounting an audacious art installation was not an idea whose time had come. When the City rejected the request to build The Gates in 1981, Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis concluded in his report that it was “in the wrong place…at the wrong time…and in the wrong scale.”
In 1980, the Central Park Conservancy was formed. Over the years came the fundraising and rehabilitation. First things first required focusing on the resodding of the lawns, repairing the fountains, and thousands of other tasks. Piece by piece, the park was returned from ruin to a new splendor.
In 2003, in the Wall St. Journal, Gordon Davis praised the first Central Park administrator, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers and the first chairman of the Central Park Conservancy Bill Beinecke as key figures in the park’s resurrection.
It was a good, quick ride through the park on the 96th St. bus today. Christo and Jean-Claude have done their tasks well, and their crews are raising the gates as planned. The work-of-art-in-progress is in its final stage. For the rest of us, all we’ll have to do is come out and enjoy it. As Jean-Claude said, “It’s only a work of art. Nothing more.”
It is a paradox of sorts, but by pushing forward with the singular intuitive vision to fully restore these acres of open space, the park’s advocates helped release the spirits of urban revitalization that today can be felt in every corner of the city.
posted by Paul Cogley at 11:13 PM
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