"Christo and Jeanne-Claude" @ AMOA
the "Christo and Jeanne-Claude" exhibit opened this weekend at the Austin Museum of Art. Christo and Jeanne-Claude are a married couple who envisioned and produced "The Gates" in New York City's Central Park last year. today i learned that "The Gages" project was in the works since 1979: it took 26 years to get the City's approval to install the 7,503 gates running for 23 miles throughout the park. in fact, it's so difficult to obtain permits for their vast environmental undertakings, that only 18 of their projects have been produced.
the AMOA exhibit consists mostly of conceptual drawings of proposed installations. these works are incredible in their own right - in fact, Christo and Jeanne-Claude self-fund their installations by selling their artwork. looking at these sketches, it's easy to assume that they are portraits of the installed works. but they become even more beautiful when you realize that these are actually portraits of their vision before the works were ever installed. according to Christo, the two are always blown away when they realize that the installed piece is even more beautiful than they could possibly imagine (the biographical video is yet another highlight of the exhibit; Christo is clearly the spokeswoman for the duo, and their banter is adorable).
i would have really loved to have seen "Valley Curtain", installed in 1972 in Rifle, Colorado, between Grand Junction and Glenwood Spring in the Grand Hogback Mountain Range. It's a sad story, really: just 28 hours after completion of the Valley Curtain, a gale estimated in excess of 60mph made it necessary to start the removal of the piece.
