On Central Park in Winter
Saturday, 5 March 2005 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daYou don't know the number of times in the last week I've wanted to write an entry and managed not to.
To catch up a bit:
My impression of the Christo in Central Park is overall mixed. It was quite positive on the first two days, and only so-so on the last day. There's a good reason for this, I think- there's a fundimental flaw in the execution. The Gates were spread out over such a broad area that we were compelled to keep looking and walking... But you could only see the Gates in so many different ways before their shower-curtain nature comes out.
The afternoon we arrived in the city, it was lightly snowing, with a bit of wind, and there were tons of people around the midtown part of the park. That was really neat. The light quality, the waving orange fabric, the snow- it was magical.
As d. said in his entry on the subject, it was nearly monochrome in the park, except for the Gates. I think that part of the exhibit, the surprise of the colour, worked really well.
On the second day, we went up to the northern-most part of the park, in Harlem. It was nearly deserted that morning, except for a few dozen exhibit-workers shovelling snow from the paths.
A closeup of the fabric...
In the time we were there, we didn't see any defaced Gates- which struck both dan and me as odd.
We had lunch with dan's friend Sophia, whose brother was one of the 500 people working on the installation. He said the visitors were all great, except everybody asked why he had a pole with a tennis ball on the end. (it was to untangle fabric that got caught from the wind).
More writing later, on other subjects... For now, one of my favourite photos from the trip... yes, that's a thumb over the lens; I'll crop that out later. :-)
To catch up a bit:
My impression of the Christo in Central Park is overall mixed. It was quite positive on the first two days, and only so-so on the last day. There's a good reason for this, I think- there's a fundimental flaw in the execution. The Gates were spread out over such a broad area that we were compelled to keep looking and walking... But you could only see the Gates in so many different ways before their shower-curtain nature comes out.
The afternoon we arrived in the city, it was lightly snowing, with a bit of wind, and there were tons of people around the midtown part of the park. That was really neat. The light quality, the waving orange fabric, the snow- it was magical.
As d. said in his entry on the subject, it was nearly monochrome in the park, except for the Gates. I think that part of the exhibit, the surprise of the colour, worked really well.
On the second day, we went up to the northern-most part of the park, in Harlem. It was nearly deserted that morning, except for a few dozen exhibit-workers shovelling snow from the paths.
A closeup of the fabric...
In the time we were there, we didn't see any defaced Gates- which struck both dan and me as odd.
We had lunch with dan's friend Sophia, whose brother was one of the 500 people working on the installation. He said the visitors were all great, except everybody asked why he had a pole with a tennis ball on the end. (it was to untangle fabric that got caught from the wind).
More writing later, on other subjects... For now, one of my favourite photos from the trip... yes, that's a thumb over the lens; I'll crop that out later. :-)
