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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