Gates

Points of transition, passageways, entrances to sacred space.....

Christo & Jean Claude's Gates in Central Park, NYC (Feb. 2005).



On January 22, 2003 Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, announced that the city has given permission to New York artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to realize their temporary work of art:The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005.

The 7500 Gates, 16 feet (4.87 meters) high with a width varying from 5' 6" to 18 feet (1,67 m to 5,48 meters) will follow the edges of the walkways and will be perpendicular to the selected 23 miles of footpaths in Central Park. Free hanging saffron colored fabric panels suspended from the horizontal top part of the gates will come down to approximately 7 feet ( 2,13 meters) above the ground. The gates will be spaced at 12 foot (3,65 meter) intervals, except where low branches extend above the walkways allowing the synthetic woven panels to wave horizontally towards the next gate and be seen from far away through the leafless branches of the trees. The temporary work of art The Gates is scheduled for February 2005, to remain for 16 days, then the 7,500 Gates shall be removed and the materials will be recycled.




The 5 inch (12,7 cm) square vertical and horizontal poles will be extruded in 65 miles (104,6 km) of recyclable saffron colored vinyl. The vertical poles will be secured by 15,000 narrow, steel base footings, 600 pounds (275 Kilograms) each, positioned on the paved surfaces. There will be no holes in the ground at all.

The off-site fabrication of the gates structures and assembly of the 7500 fabric panels made of 1,089,882 square feet (101,250 square meters) of fabric will be done in local workshops, and factories.

The on-site installation of the bases, by small teams, spread in the park, will neither disturb the maintenance and management of Central Park nor the every day use of the park by the people of New York.

In teams of eight, 600 workers wearing "The Gates" uniforms, will be responsible for installing 100 gates per team. All workers will be financially compensated and receive one hot meal per day. Professional security will work in the park after dark. The unfurling of the fabric panels will bloom in one day.






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Fashimi Inari Shrine Gates, Kyoto Japan.





There are 30,000 or so Inari shrines around Japan; this is the head shrine. They are dedicated to the gods of rice and sake and associated in general with PROSPERITY and success in business. Foxes, who are connected with the HARVEST, are much in evidence.
At the entrace to the main shrine, there are huge red torii gates, flanked by large fox statues in red bibs. As you go up the mountain, the gates, the foxes, and the shrines get smaller and more numerous, until towards the top of the mountain there’s a maze of tiny shrines all built on top of each other, each attended by tiny foxes.
Aside from the foxes, the shrine is notable for the red torii gates. All shrines have toriis and many of them are painted red, but this goes way beyond. The various paths up the mountain, pass under a near-solid tunnel of over 10,000 red gates, all of them inscribed with the names of sponsors.

Artist team to visit in January of 2006

At AMOA–Downtown, January 28, 2006 – April 30, 2006


AUSTIN, TEXAS – On the week preceeding the debut of "The Gates" in Central Park, the Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) announces a Christo and Jeanne-Claude retrospective exhibition and visit by the artist team in January of 2006. This featured exhibition is expected to attract the interest and curiosity of the entire community.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude:

This selection of seventy-five works includes preparatory objects for The Gates Project, their long-anticipated installation in New York's Central Park February 12 – 27, 2005. It also includes early wrapped objects, a life-size Store Front, a scale model of the Wrapped Reichstag, preparatory drawings, collages, and large-scale photographs of completed projects such as Wrapped Coast, Valley Curtain, Running Fence, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Surrounded Islands, The Umbrellas, Japan - USA, Wrapped Reichstag, Wrapped Trees. The exhibition is organized by The Trust for Museum Exhibitions.

The Artist Team

Famous for their fabric installations, Christo and wife-collaborator, Jeanne-Claude have created some of the most compelling and controversial public artworks of the 20th century. Together they challenge perceptions of contemporary art with grand projects to wrap urban and rural sites. In contrast to the ephemeral nature of their creations, designing, securing access, and installing their grandiose projects on private and public property takes years.

AMOA's Long-time Relationship with Christo and Jeanne Claude:
In 1979 (August 25 - October 14) the Austin Museum of Art–Lagunna Gloria introduced many Austinites to the work of Christo and Jeanne Claude with the exhibition Urban Projects, which included 10 scale models, 90 framed photographs, three films: Running Fence, Wrapped Coast, and Valley Curtain—organized by the Insttitute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work Surrounded Islands, Project for Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1983 from the collection of James Armstrong will be featured in AMOA's March 5 – May 15, 2006 exhibition Color//Pattern/Grid at the Austin Museum of Art–Downtown..

AUSTIN MUSEUM OF ART–DOWNTOWN

AMOA–Downtown serves as the Museum's principaal exhibition site and presents continually changing exhibitions and education programs that showcase a diverse array of twentieth-century and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, photography, prints, and video. To complement the exhibitions, the Museum also presents a broad range of public education programs. The Museum Store offers a range of art-inspired gifts.