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The Passion of the Christo
Christo is the installation artist best known for wrapping up bridges and buildings, placing giant umbrellas in a California valley and even draping a canyon in orange fabric. Working with his partner Jeanne Claude, for the last three decades, the couple has created a series of works that examine our relationship to our spaces, both natural and urban. Their pieces take years to plan, are meticulously planned but once installed are often only up for a few short weeks, a gesture that comments on our abilities to affect our surroundings but also on our impermanence.
The couple’s latest project, The Gates, Project for Central Park was conceptualized by Christo some 25 years ago and features thousands of 16-feet tall ‘gates’ draped by the duo’s trademark orange fabric snaking through the public pathways in Central Park. The project will be unveiled this Saturday and will be up for the rest of the month. 
Those of us here in Toronto can save on the airfare and accommodation and catch the AGO’s exhibit of plans, drawings and photographs by Christo and Jeanne-Claude which runs until May 15. Gathered from the collection of Toronto art collector W. Galen Weston, the AGO gives us a thorough retrospective of the duo’s work. It’s easy to see the progression in Christo’s work, the line from wrapping up small packages on tables to the audaciousness of wrapping up the Reichstag. Some of the drawings partially capture the majesty inherent in Christo works such as Valley Curtain or the Umbrellas.
Equally fascinating are the Christo works that haven’t been completed or that have been abandoned because of logistical difficulties. One sketch has Christo wrapping a building right at the heart of Times Square, a project that sadly was never completed. The next couple of years might see Christo and Jeanne-Claude trying to re-enact the work of the pharaohs by building a giant mastaba made of oil barrels in the United Arab Emirates. Or they might go back to Colorado to try to suspend a giant curtain over a river, a work with so much conceptual beauty and grace that it was clear from the preliminary sketches alone.