Yes, I think I'm with you here, Doug. saw it only on the box (an experience
in itself), but I think it "speaks" to many things: Example: I take it as a
metaphysical piece that could only have been made in out time. And it did
display new vision, a harvest of seeds sown by any and all of our
artitecturals. It framed a new language of landscape and image (A.
Goldsworthy comes also to mind here). I think it gave us a chance to see
new (or at least other) visions, and I believe it gave us a chance to look
well and be taught that we can see them.
Cheers,
Gerald S.
> And whatever I might think of it were I there, i would have liked to be
> able to be there, to then think, respond, & even criticize should I
> have been so moved. CBC news (which is not quite like Fox) did a 10
> minute piece on the work, with interviews with the artists & with some
> of the first viewers. My response was that it looked neat, would be fun
> to walk through, &, given that they paid for the whole thing
> themselves, couldn't be blamed on 'wasting public money on silly
> art...'
>
> Doug
>
>
> On 28-Feb-05, at 12:30 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
>
>> For an historic note, when Christo was a teenager in Bulgaria - in the
>> late
>> Forties - one of his summer jobs was to live and work on a collective
>> farm
>> located beside the Orient Express. He and other workers took
>> responsibility
>> for ordering mowed hay into bales that they neatly stacked and covered
>> with
>> colored tarps.
>> The image of these well ordered and colorful stacks was to present a
>> persuasive, well organized and aesthetically attractive image of the
>> socialist Bulgarian Government to travelers on the Orient Express -
>> many of
>> whom were from Europe and America, including countries that were in
>> high
>> debate about whether or not to become entirely or partially Socialist.
>> The
>> covered hay stacks were considered a highly effective form of socialist
>> advertising.
>>
>> Every time I see a Christo project I marvel at how his career has
>> taken off
>> from that first Bulgarian experience in making public art occur in
>> such a
>> diversity of contexts with a diversity potential intentions, or what
>> more
>> often happens, in a space of "non-intention" over which the artist
>> waxes no
>> control. The materials are always only one half of the event; the
>> other half
>> is what both individual and the public bring into the environment.
>> It's in
>> this alchemy of the combination of materials and person(s) that
>> something
>> transcends into another space - at least for a moment or a sustained
>> moment.
>> In Hannad Arendt's terms, the site becomes a place of public
>> disclosure - in
>> which the environment (including it's historical associations),
>> objects and
>> persons become actors on a stage, one in which we partake both as our
>> own
>> experience, and the witness to the enactments of those of others. One
>> might, for examplem juxtapose this kind of public experience with Fox
>> Network (as a site) - where space is entirely enclosed,
>> claustrophobically
>> so, and "we" as individuals or a group are permitted no disclosure at
>> all.
>> Ideally its one in which authority - in all senses - returns to the
>> members
>> of the Polis.
>>
>> The Christos in that sense are only responsible for creating a stage
>> that
>> permits the event.
>>
>> Stephen V
>> Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
>>
>>
>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> Department of English
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
> (780) 436 3320
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
> care to be more
> precise about whatever
> it is you are
> saying, I said
>
> Bill Manhire
>
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