Christo Yavacheff in a scene from Kino Lorber's documentary 'Walking on Water'
I am not particularly drawn to installation art. However, that February in 2005 in New York’s Central Park, when I walked under thousands of flaming and fluttering saffron vinyl panels, remains quite vivid in my mind after nearly a decade and half. I was sharply reminded of that while watching a trailer of a documentary ‘Walking on Water’ about the Bulgarian artist Christo Yavacheff’s and his late French wife and fellow artist Jeanne-Claude’s ‘The Floating Piers.’
The synopsis of the documentary describes it as “an unprecedented look at Christo’s process, from the inception through to the completion of his latest large-scale art installation, a dahlia-yellow walkway atop Italy’s Lake Iseo that was eventually experienced by over 1.2 million people.”
The trailer is characteristically quirky as Christo and his team go about putting up this rather remarkable installation. The 2005 New York installation titled ‘The Gates’ was the artist couple’s obsession from 1979 coming to a fruition after nearly three decades. They were known to finance all their installations themselves and not accepting any sponsorship and donations. Christo wears the air of a maverick and whimsical artist rather lightly.
Installation art of the scale that Christo and Jeanne-Claude put up require a great deal of planning, artistic vision, engineering skills and a passionate team. Since like all arts, even installation art does not serve any easily recognizable societal purpose, civic authorities of towns or cities where they are being sought to be installed, do not warm up to them readily. I suppose that was part of the thrill for the two artists.
The 83-year-old Christo brings all his passions to bear on ‘The Floating Piers’. Even if you do not watch the documentary by Kino Lorber, I suggest you spare a couple of minutes to watch its trailer.
I wrote this short post because it triggered a joyous familial memory. I did a quick pastel on paper fusing 'The Gates' with 'Walking on Water'.
'The Gates'--MC