
Christo has died - tin7in
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/31/christo-artist-who-wrapped-the-reichstag-dies-aged-84
======
ftio
The only meaningful C++ program I’ve ever written was a command line animation
of Christo’s gates in Central Park.

I was in high school and was incredibly cynical about the whole thing, so I
made an animation of a very primitive ASCII Godzilla that would trample the
gates after playing an ominous tune using Beeps.

Now of course I regret my dismissive stance (the gates were very beautiful),
but I’ll never forget that C++ program.

~~~
battery_cowboy
He'd probably have liked that his art inspired you to make new art, artists
usually love that sort of thing.

------
tin7in
Interesting fact that might have affected his works and ultimately millions
seeing them.

Christo's father was a prominent chemical textile manufacturer in Bulgaria and
Christo was probably exposed to fabrics and textile rolls very early in his
life.

------
asiachick
I liked his work

There was a 60 minutes episode long ago about him and his wife, probably the
80s. It seemed pretty clear she raised the money. What I remember most is that
they, or her, were good at hobnobbing with the rich and getting them to donate
millions for these projects. A single project might cost $20 million and to
make it they might raise $40 million (and this was 1980s dollars)

~~~
LanceH
In the, "I could have painted that" line -- I've always been more impressed
that someone could raise the money and get the permits/clearances to do a lot
of these things.

~~~
ponker
I hope that with sculpture and large scale installation art there aren't as
many people who say "I could have done that." The job is more engineering than
art, coming up with materials that can say, drape over a building with sharp
projecting features but also be light enough not to pull down the structure
itself, etc. Large sculpture even more so.

------
jhayward
There is a lot of art that I don't 'get', and I've been sort of dismissivie-
to-unaware of over the years. Christo's art is one of those.

But as time has passed and I've had a chance to experience some of those
artists work in person I've had a few a-ha moments where the art clicked for
me and I now enjoy and appreciate them.

Christos has been around long enough and talked about enough that I think
there may be something that I could learn from it by seeing it first hand.

I'm sad that I won't have the chance.

------
riffraff
There is a documentary[0] of his work on Floating Piers[1] which is pretty
nice.

It was one of his latest projects, completed after Jean-Claude died, and it
was _really_ impactful, with hundreds of thousands of people coming to
"experience art" for free.

It is sad to hear he won't be making more of this stuff, RIP.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZWQt5fg1eU&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZWQt5fg1eU&feature=youtu.be)

[1] [https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=the-
floati...](https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=the-floating-
piers)

------
jfoutz
A few years ago I saw a retrospective, with a bunch of drawings and background
stories from different projects.

As I get farther in my career, I spend less time writing code, and more time
convincing people that we should deploy that code.

I think the art itself is neat, but haven't seen any of it in person. The
years of negotiations with neighborhood, city, state, and federal
organizations to actually put the art up, well that, that's pretty humbling.

~~~
pavlov
I've thought that Christo and Jeanne-Claude had an interesting artistic
business model: the finished works are public and free to view, but they sold
large quantities of sketches and other artifacts to collectors to fund their
work.

I don't know if there are other established artists doing that. Maybe it's
more common than I realize.

~~~
Daub
Yes... the so-called sketches were often done after the major work was already
completed. Kind of like reverse preparatory work. His work was very expensive
indeed, and tthis was one of the ways they funded it. That and tax write-offs
from big buisness.

I never understood the Jean Claude thing. She always insisted very vocally
that she and Christo were a creative partnership. However, there is no
discernable difference betweeen Christo's work before JC, and that which he
produced after they partnered. So where is her creative inmput?

My experaince of her is colored by a very colourfull fax I recived from her
whilst interning at a major London gallery. I made the huge mistake of
addressing a communication only to Christo.

------
hristov
I also saw his gates in central park. He was a true artist -- his art brought
joy. On paper it makes no sense why those things would make me happy, but boy
they did.

~~~
acomjean
I love the gates. It didn't expect much, but it was truly amazing experience.
I like experience art.

I met a volunteer and he gave me a piece of the orange fabric.

------
mistrial9
after a "Christo's Fence" exhibit in the SF Bay Area long ago, a property
owner acquired some materials from the effort and made an overhanging
enclosure from it on his inner-urban property. While working away on some
construction project, a muscular tattooed guy and I started talking about it,
and the result was that I was dared to climb up to the three story roof and
cross the alley on the Christo's Fence material alone (a sheer drop below).
With the expression "danger == fun" in mind, I did cross the alley from above
on the white cloth material -- it did not tear, I did not fall, and I had a
lot of fun. Thanks Christo's Fence !

------
sp332
M Eifler had some VR experiments inspired by Christo's work, especially
Surrounded Islands. The second part of this blog post describes them:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190908211426/http://elevr.com/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190908211426/http://elevr.com/experimental-
still-lifes-and-landscape-interventions/)

------
suzzer99
He wrapped the sidewalks of Loose Park in Kansas City in orange. Kansas
Citians had no idea what to think. As a kid I thought it was pretty cool.
Maybe it helped pave the way for the weird sculptures on top of Bartle Hall,
and the equally weird shuttlecocks on the Nelson Art Gallery grounds - which
Kansas City (eventually) embraced and came to love.

------
goodsignal
I designed and built a burning man shade structure for out camp with one of
Christo's Running Fence panels that we found in an old barn in Northern
California. I was so glad about how many of my 'neighbors' knew about Christo.
I got a little street cred from that :)

------
sharker8
I got to see the gates in central park, he will be missed.

~~~
technofiend
Same here and take a swatch they were giving away. Something about how
ephemeral it was made it appealing. I tried taking photos but they never did
any justice to the feeling of standing inside a giant artwork. I was saddened
by the fact I couldn't share it with my wife since she wasn't in NYC, but
maybe that was partially the point.

------
javajosh
Rest in peace. He was by far my favorite wrapper.

------
nikolay
As a Bulgarian, I'm saddened. As an environmentalist - I only am saddened that
another human being has died, but not much. But as an inquiring mind I keep
wondering: Is wrapping stuff up a mental condition or artistry? :D

------
ZacharyPitts
A bit late, but here's a very unique photo of the "running fence" taking from
my backyard as a kid in Petaluma, Ca. You can see it 'running' along the top
of the hill in the background.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Fence)

the photo: [https://i.imgur.com/VVzzZjz.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VVzzZjz.jpg)

------
supernova87a
A couple thoughts on Christo:

1.

The "waste of resources" argument never held too much importance in my mind,
because he and JC were able to pay for the art installations on their own, as
"wasteful" as that may be. That they were able to convince wealthy donors to
pony up $ is something I'm sure many aspire to. And who are we to complain if
someone can get others to believe in an idea with private funding? VCs,
anyone? Kudos to them for their persuasiveness.

And separately, on the apparent quantities of material -- much of that was
pretty completely recycled (metal, plastic), so it was chiefly the
manufacturing and installation labor that was really spent. You could equally
say that it also produced jobs wherever their art went.

2.

I think the thing that leaves the more dissatisfied taste in my mouth is that
much of it didn't seem like very innovative or even subjectively amazing art.
It only seemed to be self-fulfilling. In the sense that it was like the
Kardashians -- they only seem to be popular because everyone says they're
popular. Yet I don't get why they're popular. And similarly, looking at the
art itself, if you didn't know better, nothing would say, "amazing", "world
changing". (personal taste, of course)

You almost suspect that Christo's beginnings were spaghetti thrown against the
wall, seeing if anyone would buy into some silly idea of wrapping something in
colored plastic, like he was grasping for artistic straws. And it was only
because he proposed something so large and crazy that it was different. And
then when the first or 2nd one got some odd traction, it turned into an
unexpected snowball. If he hadn't gotten any early success, you wouldn't look
at the ideas and retrospectively say they were stunning, and what a shame they
didn't get built.

I will say that the NYC gates and others that people were able to walk through
and enjoy en masse were fun. But people like walking around in colorful new
things anyway -- occupy the family for a couple hours. You wouldn't call
Disneyland "art" exactly.

And it never shook me out of the nagging thought that there was something
disproportionate -- maybe even "unfair" or overhyped about the popular success
of the guy -- much like if the boss's son were to be winning a bunch of art
shows sponsored by the family. Or that he was only an "artist" by virtue of
being able to get people to pay for his experiments and the bigness of them.

Anyway, at least we have the memories to think about.

~~~
lalalandland
Art as a big polluter and waste of resources seem like a stretch. Biggest
polluters are military and agriculture. I don't think art would make it on
that list.

------
wavefunction
he came to a part of my state that was probably not too famous for one of his
projects at first I questioned the value but then I relaxed and came to
appreciate the work he had created, the dialog, the introspection and the
choice of place [https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=over-
the-r...](https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=over-the-river) it
was an impoverished place from a capitalist perspective, but a place rich with
stark beauty he acknowledged and leveraged into his art

~~~
wwarner
It's really too bad that Over The River was never finished. I always like the
idea a lot, and would have gone out there to see it. Anyway he and jean-claude
moved on and did other pretty great things.

~~~
mc32
He did do the pink surrounded islands thing in Florida which was a pretty big
endeavor on water.

~~~
wyclif
That was the first thing I'd ever seen by him when I was a kid (in a photo
that was part of a National Geographic piece). I wish I could have seen it in
person. I remember thinking how audacious it was to wrap an island in pink
plastic and call it art. It was also my first exposure to large scale
temporary art installation pieces.

------
js2
I lived in Miami when he wrapped the islands in Biscayne Bay:

[https://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/surrounded-
islands](https://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/surrounded-islands)

It was cool.

------
polynomial
Nice to see the HN crossover here, he wasn't all that involved in, or
connected to technology sectors.

He has always seemed underrated to me, I wonder what history will have to say
about that.

------
hoseja
Huh, didn't know there was a real world Zima Blue.

------
anm89
Am I the only one who looks at this massive installations and views them as a
massive waste of resources and intentional littering?

These are multi-ton plastic monuments to some guys ego.

Certainly not celebrating his death, he seems like a nice, interesting guy but
it's hard for me to get behind the work.

~~~
robbrown451
I see it the same, but I recognize it is going to annoy a lot of people to say
so out loud.

Warning: cynicism ahead.

A lot of art seems about being in the "in group", so you can show your
sophistication by appreciating things that others don't get. It's not so
different from liking certain genres of music that strike the rest of us and
just being borderline-offensive noise. (
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DsGleQsaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DsGleQsaU)
)

I'll give him this, I admire the fact that he was able to convince someone
somewhere to give him the money to do these things. But I'm sure there are a
huge number of artists that would do more interesting things with the kind of
resources these things take. To me they are from the school of art that says
that the more audacious and obnoxious something is, the better. The goal seems
to be to get people to think about the question "what is art?", which to me is
a rather boring semantic question that I don't want to waste a lot of time
thinking about. Sorry.

Honestly, I'd have a lot more appreciation of this sort stuff if those who put
it out there presented it with a bit of an evil grin, rather than with an air
of smugness and pretension.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> It's not so different from liking certain genres of music that strike the
> rest of us and just being borderline-offensive noise.

As a fan of certain avant-garde music, I've talked with a fair few fellow
concertgoers about what their "origin story" is, how they got into this music
that appeals only to a niche. It _never_ had to do with discovering a
community of fans and wanting to fit in with them – discovering like-minded
people only happened later. Rather, the exposure to the avant-garde music was
something random. Often it was seeing _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and being bowled
over by the György Ligeti pieces in the score.

In my own case, I owe my discovery of this music to listening to one of the
new-arrivals CDs in the classical-music section of my local record shop
(remember CDs and listening booths?). What I heard made me hooked for life,
and it was some years before I ever discovered any kind of group that I could
even be in with.

The same is true of visual art. Vastly more people like Vasarely or Bacon
because they stumbled upon one of those Taschen volumes in a bookshop, than
hang out in art-gallery circles and actually talk to other art lovers.

So excuse me if I take offense at your post, which seems to dismiss music that
authentically gives us pleasure (and initially a purely solitary pleasure) by
tarring us fans as disingenous frauds or peacocks. There is almost always
someone who posts the same thing as you in these kind of discussions, and it
never ceases to disappoint me.

~~~
robbrown451
Well there is a difference between "avant guarde" music and certain things
which everyone in a certain social group likes. When I was a teenager in the
late 70s early 80s, it was mostly hard rock that was socially approved by my
peers. In design school in the 80s, it was gothy stuff. Regardless, social
groups were almost defined by their music.

Also, very few are ever going to admit, even to themselves, that their
motivation is impressing others. More likely they will, uhh, take offense at
the suggestion. Hey, I remember my sister accusing teenage me of only liking
the kind of music that I liked because it was cool to like it. And yeah, I was
offended. Doesn't mean there isn't validity there.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Again, how are people trying to "impress others" by listening to this music if
they never talk to other people about that music? When I discovered avant-
garde music, it was clear that this is something that I should enjoy alone and
my friends would not react kindly to it. It was rather a source of shame and
insecurity, not a badge of how cool I was. Yes, eventually I moved to a city
where this music gets performed and I could meet likeminded people, but that
was years later.

~~~
asiachick
Trying to impress your in group, not the out group.

south park has made great fun of this with their portrayal of goth kids
complaining that everyone is conformist and then demanding that their friends
be conform to be just like them, like the same music they like and wear black.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
As I mentioned, few people who get into avant-garde music through recordings
even have an "in group" to impress. They could only get an "in group" if they
moved to a fairly small number of cities around the world.

~~~
robbrown451
Really surprised you seem to assume this is about you. If there's no in-group
to impress with your eclectic tastes, and you enjoy them on your own, it
really doesn't apply to you.

Christi's work required a ton of money, that had to come from somewhere. It
clearly wasn't the mass appeal, since he didn't sell tickets or anything. It
was rich people who wanted to impress one another with their sophisticated
sense of art. (or maybe just with the fact that they had so much money burning
holes in their pockets)

------
fsckboy
For some reason I'm reminded of Bette Davis's famous remark on hearing about
Joan Crawford's death: "You should never say bad things about the dead, only
good… Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

My favorite art installation of this genre was not by Christo, but it was a
spoof inspired by his "Gates" in Central Park, in reaction to a piece called
"Floating Island" that was itself billed as an "anti-Gates".

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/24/arts/24isla.s...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/24/arts/24isla.span.jpg)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/arts/design/a-miniature-g...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/arts/design/a-miniature-
gate-in-hot-pursuit-of-a-miniature-central-park.html)

background on Floating Island [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/arts/its-
not-easy-making-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/arts/its-not-easy-
making-art-that-floats.html)

more background [http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/2005/11/public-art-on-
cheap.htm...](http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/2005/11/public-art-on-cheap.html)

TL;DR: long story short: Gates was a lot of orange "doorways" installed in
Central Park in Manhattan. Then a piece of green landscape garden was towed
around on Manhattan's rivers, on a barge, by a tugboat. But somebody was
inspired to chase the barge in a motorboat with a Christo inspired orange
doorway on it...

~~~
mikl
Yeah, never heard of this person before, but seeing what useless nonsense he
managed to waste millions of dollars on, it is at least good that he won’t be
wasting anymore art grants.

~~~
michaelt
Man, you sure will be mad when you hear how much money Magic Leap has spent
with less to show for it.

