Christo

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the shade of an umbrella

 

During dinner one night a good friend told me about Christo's Umbrella Project for Japan and the US. I laughed and shook my head; it seemed pretty ridiculous to go to a place as remote and rainless as Gorman and put up damn near two-thousand umbrellas. And what's this business about doing it in Japan, too? Doesn't Christo know you can only be in one place at one time?

My friend thought it would be lovely. And, she explained, Christo pays everyone that works on his projects. After six years in the making, that's a lot of people. Yeah, well, that's something good, I thought. But when I found out it cost $26 million I was appalled. I couldn't believe my friend, who refused to see Terminator II because of its $90 million budget, supported this. Why do something conceptual - and temporary - for $26 million dollars when thousands of homeless could be fed and housed for years?

"Go see Terminator II," I told her. "It's a thrill you can sink your teeth into." "I'd rather see the umbrellas," she replied wiping her mouth, "It's a more sophisticated thrill."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christo shakes my hand firmly and looks at me intensely from behind his thick square black-rimmed glasses. His grey bushy hair sticks out in all directions. He's wearing faded blue jeans and a casual untucked shirt. He's thin, appearing almost frail, but his movements are quick and electric.

"You sit there," he points to a worn, two person couch, then assembles a fold-out chair and sits in it like a hummingbird momentarily at rest. He folds his aims, then crosses his legs, then leans his neck out to me awaiting my first question. I smile. He smiles back and with a tilt of his head, he could win a Woody Allen look-alike contest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was still dark when I rode with one of Christo's photographers to the top of a large, wide, steep hill. The air was cold and a frenetic wind stirred my hair. The photographer was already gone, walking east, camera bags banging at his hips. on all sides I was surrounded by tall, stiff, lifeless pods. As the first orange light of day appeared on the horizon, the wind cast an eerie loneliness at my throat These still-life embryos looked more like a platoon of science fiction cacti about to invade Interstate 5 than a mega-million dollar brainchild all set for its birthday. I laughed, but tripped over something and the wind laughed back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I love to work with people who like to work," Christo says with the reflection of the back yard embossed on his glasses. "I like very much their energy and I try to create projects that relate doer behavior."

There's plenty of that in Japan and the US which is one reason he chose these counties for the Umbrellas. But Christo also wanted to show the contrast in how the landscape looks and is used.

"It's really my most complex work in the way it's dealing with physicality," he explains. "The umbrellas carry a tremendous interplay between memory and reality. You are sitting under a yellow one, and it's only half of it. You know one thousand miles away there are blue umbrellas, the other half." He fluidly uncrosses then recrosses his legs. "In Japan, the configuration of the umbrellas and the whole project is very different. It's controlled, restricted and regimented space in Japan. The umbrellas are intimate and saturated together there because when you have 124 million people on only 8% of the land, you do much different things with the land."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indeed, 452 working farmers had to permit the opening of 1340 umbrellas stretching across 12 miles of Japanese land. Conversely, land from only 25 people was necessary to open the 1760 umbrellas covering 18 miles in America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travis - Dear Diary

 

http://christojeanneclaude.net/index.html.en 

http://www.evergreen.edu/library/ARCHWWW/TESCWriters/AlumniWriters/Fortson/FortsonChristo.html