For 16 days in February 2005, visitors to New York's Central Park could walk through “The Gates,” an art installation by husband and wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude featuring 7,500 orange rectangular gateways with identical hanging nylon fabrics (depending on the light, the colors range from golden yellow to reddish orange) along 23 miles of walkways. Director Brad Minnich's documentary interweaves both real-time and time-lapse photography of “The Gates” (from installation through visitation) together with appreciative comments from four interviewed New Yorkers (“like a sea of Buddhist prayer flags”) and press conference footage. In the PR segments, mayor Michael Bloomburg manages to reference both Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind during his praise for Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the latter of whom admits in a demurring, self-congratulatory tone that the exhibit “has no purpose, it is not a symbol…it is just a work of art.” The film concludes with a photo gallery of Mark Terk's photographs of “The Gates” set to music. Essentially a souvenir-program-level overview of an artwork that was dismantled after half a month (incidentally, no art critics appear here, but the reception was decidedly mixed), The Gates is a handsomely lensed if also somewhat lightweight documentary on a relatively ephemeral artistic event. Optional. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)
The Gates
(2005) 30 min. DVD: $29.95. Crystal Productions. PPR. ISBN: 978-1-56290-577-4. Volume 23, Issue 4
The Gates
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