Patrick

Hmm. While posting a reply to a thread about the current art in Central Park, I guess the thread got closed or removed.
But here was my rather new thought.

All this talk about The Gates just reminded me of my youth, in an art gallery looking at some wild modern art. My father would look at some bold and colorful brush strokes and see a huge price tag and would snidely remark. "Geez. I could have done that with my eyes closed." To which my mother would always cleverly reply, "then why didn't you?"

So I guess the bottom line is that many of these people are either jealous or suspicious of someone who has become so famous and has created such an incredible stir of interest and they must put down all the efforts. That's why they seem to indicate it wouldn't be their choice of color or it could be more elaborate or it shouldn't even be there or the fabric is so ugly. To them we should all ask, "if you could do better, why didn't you?"

Gekko

Because they didn't have or didn't want to waste $21 million, perhaps?

(Particularly in a city that could use the money is so many more beneficial ways.)

That's a good start. I good go on, of course.

BeanMan

I remember as a kid in western Colorado when Cristo strung an orange curtain across Rifle Gap. The wind tore it down in short order. I always wondered, "What the heck was that about". I guess not all have to understand it but I'm having a hard time 'getting' any of his art. But, then again, I'm just a farmer growing pinto beans.

BeanMan

amp322

Just visited the "gates" on Saturday. It was kind of cool to walk through them for a stretch, but it gets old after about 5 minutes. In the NY Post, someone commented that all the orange makes it look like Home Depot! Anyway, yes, there are lots of ways to spend $21 Mil, however, the money wasn't in the hands of philanthropists, but used by whack jobs who call themselves "artists". Ah, democracy... !

Tandoori_Girl

Darn. I missed all the action. Never got to read the earlier thread after I posted. I hate when they remove the posts. Patrick, I think you're right on.

BeanMan, you're right. you're a pinto farmer and, like my cousin in west TX, you probably bust your butt for beans. And nobody asks you why you do it, do they? But if they did, you'd say you do it because it's your life. Christo and Jean-claude do this because it's their life.

Gekko, I surely hope you're as vocal about all the ways money is wasted in NYC. There is plenty of excess there.

Patrick

Tandoori Girl, you didn't miss a thing. Your post was the last one on the thread. I was posting in reference to it with my comments above, since you were basically asking what all these naysayers would have done. Your post stirred up those memories of my mother's rather caustic and clever comments to my father. While I was typing my response to your final post, the entire thread vanished into thin air.

Ryan

It's a good thing this is coming down soon and not a permanent exhibit. Otherwise, there's a certain Upper West Side resident who might be joining Lazlo Toth infamy.

HowardR

Believe the rantings of Gekko if you must, but after my second walkthrough of The Gates today, I can assure the world that the project is not the laughingstock of New York (or anywhere, for that matter). I saw happy people, talking with and smiling at each other, taking photographs, generally enjoying the experience. Like it or or not like it, fine, that's your decision. But, please, enough of the diatribes.

buttercup

Talking about wasting money on this forum is pretty ironic. Don’t we all have friends or relatives who question our desire to spend money on travel? I know I do. But if I want to spend my money on travel, I will, and if Christo and Jeanne-Claude want to spend theirs on the gates, so be it. Maybe the money could be used differently, but so could that money we’re all spending on our next trip.

KT

I want to know why those damned Vaux and Olmsted guys got paid all that money to build a phony park in the middle of the city. The Ramble, the Sheep Meadow, the Reservoir -- all phony, phony, phony and plunked down there by a couple of so-called "landscape designers." And then they add that bogus Castle, that pretentious Bethesda Fountain, some weird Egyptian obelisk, and worst of all, a statue of Alice in Wonderland. It's an outrage. They should have left things the way they were.

Al_LaCarte

KT,

Beautiful!

AL

KT

Why thank you, AL. I must confess that I was inspired by a poster on another anti-Gates thread who protested that "you can't improve on nature." Do people rally not know that Central Park is almost completely a built environment? I guess not.

Patrick

"Message: I can't believe I missed this article."

Well, I can. Maybe you missed it because it was buried amongst the many very positive comments and reviews of the project, including the now more often appearing comments about the overwhelming amount of money it is bringing in, both to local merchants due to the traffic, as well as the unbelievable amount of sales of "memorabilia" from which all the profits go to support the parks!

Of course, it's a whole lot more fun to look for the negative and repeat that, and ignore all the positives. Who wants to look at the positive when you can obsess about the negative? But it's getting harder and harder to find the negatives amidst all the positives. So I'm not surprised you missed that one first time around.

vacationdreamer

Whether or not you like Gates (I didn't think it was so great on an "art" level), there is no denying it brought out a ton of people to central park in the middle of winter. So, in that sense, it was a success, I'm glad they did it, and I'm glad I went (of course, only a five block walk for me - if I had flown cross-country i *might* have been disappointed, to say the least...).

Gekko

I'll clarify -- the gates is a laughingstock and embarrassment to a large percentage of New Yorkers and a small percentage of tourists.

Anecdote: I had lunch with a friend today who is an UWS PhD psychologist. The gates was a topic, of course, and I told her that one had to be careful no to offend the pseudo-intellectuals who blindly trumpet the travesty. She was surprised -- her experience has been just the opposite, in that a majority of her "crowd" thinks the gates is a ridiculous folly and to say something positive is to provoke a strong reaction.

Very interesting.

Today I crossed the Park in the 60's and must say it was a pleasure to see so many tourists enjoying our crown jewel. The reaction in the upper 70's and 80's, with a higher percentage of New Yorkers, is very different, however.

The orange is still nauseating, a truly stupid choice. (I heard one family wonder if Home Depot sponsored it.)

vacationdreamer

ummm, I'm a NYer, went to see it twice in the 80's, have casually talked to people in my building, etc. and have not heard anyone call it a "travesty" - worst I've heard is that it isn't really art, kind of stupid, etc., but only "psuedo-intellectuals" would call it a laughingstock and embarassment. At worst, it is orange fabric in central park.

What depresses me about comments like that is at one time not too long ago, NY was the greatest art city in the world, welcoming artists and experiments in art, recognizing that only by giving an opportunity to all ideas will we discover great artists. In many respects, that time has passed.

seetheworld

There you go again, gekko, insulting people as usual with your "pseudo-intellectual" line. It's getting old.

"I had lunch with a friend today who is an UWS PhD psychologist."

Should we be impressed? Shall we list our CV's?

Leona

Patrick,
With all due respect, there are no "new" thoughts on the Gates project. And I suspect that the reason the thread was removed was that the subject had been covered ad nauseum.

So why don't we all just agree to disagree and end this one now?

snowrooster

I'm w/you, Leona. People who like The Gates should realize that some people don't like them, and people who don't like them should respect those that do. Your opinion of The Gates really shouldn't be used to determine your level of intelligence or some insecure jealousy. Not to mention that amount of money art generates really isn't a direct correlation to it's quality - how many great artists have died penniless?

bmw732002

I saw the gates! I guess I like my Park sans-gate! But the people in the park...now that was wonderful! So many.....reactions good and not so good! Central Park is just a great place to.....wander, visit jog, exlore....enjoy!!

But..I bet the Billionaire Known as The NYC Mayor, would have LOVED it if the Gates were printed with the Olympic Logo!!! What a Huckster!
JOHN