I think Christo's a riot. I don't take his stuff all that seriously, but I think his stuff is really cool. I say it proudly. I'm excited to go see The Gates, too. Sunday!

We hope you'll do a full review!

Actually, I think most of the criticism is being leveled at people who do take him too seriously. There's nothing wrong with strolling about and saying, "Hey, that's cool." But that's all it really is. It's the folks hell-bent on reading more into it than a bunch of pretty fabrics strung up all around Central Park that awaken the fiend within the art critic. From some of the commentary I've heard around here, you'd think the guy has discovered the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

But that's the deal with art critics. Some people will take it seriously - because that's their job. It's their job to ask questions like: what does it mean? What does it say? To take a project like this seriously - not like it's a cure for cancer or anything, but to take it seriously. To judge it on its aspirations: If it's trying to say THIS, then does it succeed? That may be obnoxious to people who think even asking these questions are stupid - but to a lot of people, that dialogue is really interesting. Count myself one of them.

I always thought Christo's stuff was kind of whimsical, and beautiful - in a weird surrealistic way. He wrapped an island in pink cloth. Why? I have no idea. I don't really care - but to me, it was a startlingly cool image.

A lot of art criticism (and music criticism - actually any criticism of any art form - architecture, dance, theatre) is, of course, obnoxious and pretentious. But I'm still glad that there are people in the world who like to look at stuff like The Gates and ask questions about it, and come up with ideas about what it means. It may sound overblown to some folks - but I like it when art of this magnitude, a project of this size, is taken seriously. Even if it gets a terrible review, I like it when art is given weight, and seen as having some higher purpose.

Sue me. :)

I will indeed give a full review, even if it's: "Hmmm. What the heck??" I'll take some pictures, too, even though I don't think anyone wants to look at any more pictures of The Gates at this point in time.

This strikes me as one of the traps of abstract art- and one of the reasons I've never cared for it. Just to take painting and sculpture as an example, a representative artist would seek to get across a specific idea in a manner that has some inherent aesthetic value. Any viewer - whether critic or layman - with a reasonable amount of intelligence and experience can decide for himself what the artist is about and whether or how well the artist succeeds. (For some odd reason, I'm thinking of Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa" while I'm typing this. I suppose I remember studying it in school.) The trouble with abstract expression is that you can't answer the question because you can't know the question. The art can mean literally anything. And the result is that it means nothing.

At least that's my grumpy newly-minted old fogey view of things. ; )

D'oh! Forgot to make my point! Which was that such an atmosphere of anything-goes is very fertile ground for rampant huckerism, which is what I think the folks I linked were driving at.

This is probably a matter of personal taste as well. I'm not into abstract art either. I like Vermeer, Rubens, Winslow Homer ... that's what I respond to. But I also think Christo's stuff is really FUN. It just IS. I don't really ask questions about it ... it's kind of a spectacle to be enjoyed, if you're into that kind of thing.

And I am.

Well, let me qualify what I just wrote:

I can appreciate abstract art ... if it doesn't strike me as pretentious. A lot of it does. This is why I don't go to the Whitney Museum anymore. I can't take the pretension.

Is pretension in the eye of the beholder? I don't know the answer to THAT one!