(photo: Carrie Devorah)
The fabric of our lives
When your art involves miles of fabric and thousands of acres, you’re bound to run into some logistical hurdles. “The biggest problem for our projects is to get permission,” said world-renowned contemporary artist Christo on Tuesday. “Everything is owned by somebody.”
Speaking at the National Press Club, he and his wife/partner, Jeanne-Claude (the brains behind “The Gates” in Central Park), detailed their latest project — the placement of 5.9 miles of fabric over a 40-mile stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado.
An exhibition of the artists’ preparatory drawings for the installation, called “Over the River,” opens at the Phillips Collection on Oct. 11. But according to a source familiar with the couple’s visit, they have another reason to be in Washington: They still have yet to secure all the rights to use the federal, state and local land on which “Over the River” will be installed, and it can’t hurt to attract the attention of D.C.’s bureaucrats if they are to make their summer 2012 target date.
They’ve already paid $1.5 million for an environmental impact statement. (In fact, they bankroll all of their projects, including the expected $40-50 million for “Over the River.”)
Not that they mind. “The process is part of the work of art,” said Jeanne-Claude. “The nine months [of] pregnancy is part of having a baby, but it’s not the aim. It’s the same for us.” In fact, the process occasionally elevates the art. When they wrapped the Reichstag building in Berlin with fabric in the 1990s, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was against it all along. In his opposition, Kohl made the project “infinitely more important,” she said.
So, they were asked, is there a similar project they’d like to undertake in Washington? “No,” came her succinct response.
