The Passion of the Christo

In truth, Austinist doesn’t know much about The Gates, here in Texas. But we were living in New York last February, and here’s what we recollect: there were 7,503 of them trailing through Central Park, all saffron colored; vaguely reminiscent of temple torii with a twist of Tibetan prayer flags, they seemed sacred and fragile. But, at the time, we weren't wowed.

Today, though – a full year later – we’re thanking our lucky stars we got the chance to see them unfurled, and we’ll even tell you what turned our thinking around: it was the new Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the AMoA.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are the artists (and married couple) whose work is featured throughout the retrospective. The majority of the work is comprised of what Christo calls his "collages in two parts." These collages function as both art and currency, since proceeds from their sale fund the next big permit-getting, fabric-buying or building-wrapping adventure (in their entirety).

Around 50 collages document past and future projects, all of them temporary in situ marvels. Among the earliest is Valley Curtain, 1972. The suspension of this "curtain" in a Colorado valley – all 142,000 square feet of it – took 28 months for Christo to plan and, unfortunately, 28 hours for wind to destroy. Other landscape projects like Running Fence, 1976 (think: The Great Wall of California), and Surrounded Islands, 1983 (picture greenery outlined by floating pink tutus off Miami's coast) further illustrate Christo and Jeanne-Claude's aesthetic. Its hallmarks are fabric aplenty, and brevity – no project stands for more than a few weeks.

Their Wrapped Reichstag, 1995, stood for only 14 days. Five million visitors arrived before the painstakingly applied fabric was removed to reveal Berlin's parliamentary building quite naked, as it had been before. The wrapped structure looks nearly silken in the show's pictures and drawings. Though the 3-D scale model on the Museum floor diminishes this gossamer effect, it points to the logistical complexity of the shrouding, and the sheer volume of cloth needed to accomplish it artfully.

Surprisingly, the AMoA exhibit's most winning element isn't a work of fabric, but a work on film : a 30 minute documentary directed by the Mayles brothers, longtime collaborators of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. It highlights the personalities behind the art-making (rather charming and eccentric ones, actually). It also examines several individual projects, among them The Umbrellas, 1991. The installation seems at first to be a work of whimsy, but winds up offering a significant lesson about cultural difference: when Christo and Jeanne-Claude reveal their plan to place oversized umbrellas on the hillsides of both California and Japan, it's met with opposition. In the Unites States, public concern over the project lies with its funding source. In Japan, it lies mostly with the selected color of the umbrellas.

We can identify, for better or worse, with the Californians. Even Austinist is sometimes persuaded by American Culture at Large to prize utility and permanence over true, fleeting beauty (please forgive us). And because Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installations – however temporary and harmless – challenged our bang-per-buck values, they might have seemed a little threatening back in 2005.

But artists are nothing if not provocateurs, and the documentary portion of Christo and Jeanne-Claude makes clear that the couple value – and is even inspired by – the questions and debate surrounding their work; after all, art has no life without critical reception. And if you don't get it, they don't mind.

Editor's Note -- Tickets ($20/48) to the lecture by Christo and Jeanne-Claude on March 30 at The Paramount go on sale today, March 1st, at noon. Click here to purchase yours.
Lecture by Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Work in Progress--Over the River Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado
The Paramount Theatre
Thursday, March 30, 7 pm

* All photos (c) their respective authors:
Wrapped Reichstag, The Umbrellas, Valley Curtain (c) Wolfgang Volz

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