Saffron snake to wind through Central Park

By DAVID USBORNE

After more than 20 years of trying, Christo, the Bulgarian-born artist famous for draping landmark buildings in cloth, and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, have won permission from New York City to decorate Central Park with a 37km snake of poles and gates draped in saffron orange.

The installation, which is still drawing opposition from environmental groups, will be erected in February 2005 and remain in place for two weeks. Reversing the position of several of his predecessors, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been an enthusiast for the idea since taking office at the start of last year.

Christo, famous for shrouding the Reichstag in Berlin in white cloth and peppering valleys in California and Japan with thousands of colourful umbrellas, first sought approval for the project in 1979. Hence, he and his wife have called it The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979 to 2005.

The sculpture will take the form of 7500 gates, 4m high and 1.8m to 5.4m wide. They will support an unbroken stretch of saffron cloth that will create the impression of a tunnel, without sides, tracing the existing walkways in the park.

"I predict, whether they love this temporary work of art or not, New Yorkers will certainly make The Gates a very popular topic of conversation," Bloomberg said. "During these trying times when our natural instincts are to retreat to the comfortable and familiar, we have to reassert the daring and the imaginative spirit that differentiates New York from any other city."

To satisfy critics, Christo agreed to make the project half as big as originally intended.

Additionally, the gate poles will no longer require holes in the ground, but will sit on weighted bases placed on the hard surface of the walkways.

The Sierra Club, a group advocating environmental protection, said it would still oppose the project because it threatened to disturb animal life in the park.

- INDEPENDENT