I've always had the same reaction to Christo-- "The emperor has no clothes." We went to Central Park today to see The Gates, the art installation comprised of 23 miles of orange gates draped with orange curtains throughout the park. Friends drove in from Brooklyn with their kids to see it, and my lovely bride wanted to take the baby for a walk to meet them.

It was as garish and ugly as I was expecting, and then some. I mean, if I went to Walden Pond and streamed toilet paper through the trees-- have I just created an art installation? Central Park is a beautiful place; even on a gray winter day, with the trees bare, it has a beauty. To litter the park with these garish orange gates, with orange cloth hanging from them and blowing in the wind-- well, the one thing that kept popping into my head was, "I hope the construction is over soon and the park is back to normal." It looked, if anything, like the lovely park was filled with "construction ahead" warnings. The aesthetic of the orange was industrial, HAZMAT.

Defenders of the Gates (when you put it like that, is sounds kind of cool, like something out of Lord of the Rings) pointed to the massive scope of the work. Yes, I conceded, excellent project management. But project management isn't art. Well, they said, look how many people came out to see it! Yes, I grant, indeed it is a magnet and a spectacle. And so is a ten car pile-up-- all the more so if one of the cars is on fire and there are cops. And that isn't art either.

Art is supposed to speak to the soul. If this said anything to my soul, it was, "Look, I took an orange dump all over your beautiful park."

I will admit that it was fun watching all the snooty New Yorkers and tourists pretentiously trying to verbalize why they liked it, because they assumed they were supposed to... and finally I'll add that I didn't see one black face in all the time I was there (which wasn't long; maybe 40 minutes?) It was a very White New York kind of event, which surprised me.