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| Lake Iseo with Floating Piers - June 25, 2016 |
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| Floating Piers - crowd not accessing smaller island, June 25 |
In October 2015 I
saw an article in the New York Times that the artist Christo was constructing
an installation on Lake Iseo in Italy. Having visited several Italian Lakes,
but having only a vague idea of where Lake Iseo is, I thought it would be
interesting to visit Iseo and see the installation. Now, having been there,
and having read a little more about the project, I’m still exploring exactly
what this work is about. Christo has said that the process of getting a project
approved, designing it, raising the funds, and doing the construction and
deconstruction are all part of the work of art. Walking among the crowds,
mostly Italian, on the Floating Piers,
I thought it only became an art work when people experienced it. Now I’m
wondering if my own, and each other viewer’s process of getting there is also
part of the work of art. Christo himself said that waiting in line was part ofthe experience, so I imagine he would agree. The anticipation of seeing the
installation, the challenge of arranging to be there, both in planning the trip
from the United States and getting there from our hotel near the lake, the
physical experience of walking to it, walking on it, and finding our way back,
plus the drive into the hills so we could see it from above, and even the
challenge of finding the museum in Brescia where there was a Christo exhibition
could all be part of the work, since all those are what we talk about when we
tell people we were there. And they are all part of our experience of the art. Contemporary
works of art are not necessarily only ‘things,’ but they can also be experiences
and this one engaged us far more than most of the painting and sculpture we saw
in the numerous museums we also visited in Europe.
So while our
experience started around January, it began to take shape in April, when I was
wondering if it was conceivable to include the Floating Piers in a trip to Scandinavia. We were going to Norway
and Sweden for two weeks. I found a Ryanair flight from Stockholm to Bergamo,
and we could fly from Kansas City to Oslo and back from Milan, so it was
possible. But the only hotels in any town I could identify near the project
cost between $450 and $4000 a night. We were planning to meet Italian friends
there, and I considered just going to Brescia or Bergamo, but I wanted to be at
Lake Iseo. Finally I found the Hotel Conca Verde, located in the hills above
the lake in a town called Zone, at a very reasonable price. So we booked it.
And our friends Tom and Bruna from Padua agreed to meet us there.
On June 23 we flew
to Bergamo and rented a car and a GPS. By that time we were hearing that there
were 40,000 people a day at Lake Iseo, that the trains weren’t stopping there,
and that the roads were blocked. I realized that the installation would be more
of an event than I’d anticipated and wondered if people would fall off the pier
from the crowding. Following our GPS in the dark, we went through several long
tunnels, caught glimpses of the lake below, and snaked up the hill to the hotel,
not sure if we were going the right way and only vaguely conscious of the
vertiginous drops from the narrow road. The Conca Verde turns out to be in a
lovely location with very helpful staff and good food.
The hotel staff
told us that 90,000 people a day were visiting and that many had succumbed to
the heat and crowd, causing multiple emergency calls. All the roads approaching
it were closed, the trains were not stopping at Iseo, and the traffic was at a
standstill. Nino at the Conca Verde advised us how we could get to the Christo,
by taking a taxi to a ferry stop, taking the boat to Monte Isola, walking three
kilometers to the Christo, crossing the lake on the bridge, and having the taxi
pick us up at the end. That plan worked. We set out in the morning, but started
thinking that we should have waited till the cool of the evening, so Adele, the
most accommodating taxi driver, offered to take us back to the hotel and picked
us up again at 6.
On the boat we
talked with a local man who was making his second visit to the installation. He
and his friends were very impressed to hear that it had such international
coverage. He was taking his dachshund again because the dog had enjoyed walking
on the structure, which he said was kind of like a mattress.
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| Floating Piers from Monte Isola shore, June 24, 2016 |
I heard many
questions from my companions about how the Christo could be called art, how
original it actually is, and what makes it interesting. While there is detailed
information about how the piers were constructed, the effect was not very
different from a pontoon bridge or, even a large boat. The pier was made up of
large plastic cubes connected together, so it undulated with the waves and from
the people walking on it. The orange tarps that covered it were wrapped loosely
so I kept tripping on the folds, making me walk very carefully.
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| Floating Piers toward Monte Isola |
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| Floating Piers toward Sulzano |
On the pier I was
particularly aware of how lovely Lake Iseo is and of the natural beauty of its
surrounding hills, as well as of Monte Isola itself, a small island with
villages and almost no cars. Sulzano, the town on the mainland, also looked
delightful. The crowd on the piers did not seem to be full of art aficionados,
but mostly locals and mostly Italians. There were baby carriages and people in
wheelchairs, people with pets, families, couples, groups. All of them were
smiling.
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| Lake Iseo, June 24, 2016 |
What really struck
me was not so much the object itself or the personal experience of “walking on
water” as the p.r. put it, but my more comprehensive response. Christo’s art is
as much about the process of getting a project designed, approved, and built as
the final product and in that sense it is highly conceptual art. In many cases it takes hundreds or even
thousands of people to construct the project, hundreds more to maintain it when
it is built, and many again to take it down. The Floating Piers involved many thousands of people, giving pleasure
or at least an emotional response to all of them.
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| Color change where the fabric is wet |
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| Sulzano from Floating Piers, June 24, 2016 |
Although the
drawings for the Floating Piers show
only three or four people on them, I think the final product required the
people experiencing it: the happy crowds finding their way to this rural
location and wandering across the installation, taking pictures of themselves,
the pier, and the landscape around, complete the work of art. Like other
Christos, the work makes the viewer aware of his surroundings, but also creates
a shared experience for a large number of people. I found it joyous, communal,
challenging, and thought provoking on a lovely warm evening.
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| Crowd on Floating Piers, looking toward Sulzano, June 24, 2016 |
The next day we
drove into the hills above the town of Sulzano where the pier starts and caught
views of the Christo from above. Each time we found a viewpoint, drivers of other
cars and motorcycles were also stopping to look. We passed the huge traffic jam
of people coming to find the Christo, wandered into the hills beyond the lake,
discovered an amazing restaurant for lunch and found our way back.
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| Floating Piers, June 25, 2016 |
Our friends told
us there was an exhibition of Christo’s work in Brescia, so on our last day we
went to it, struggling to find the Museo di Santa Giulia in the maze of the medieval
part of town. Curated by Germano Celant, it is an extremely well-presented
retrospective of Christo and Jean Claude’s work from early Dockside Packages in 1961 and a Wall
of Oil Barrels: The Iron Curtain of 1961-62 through wrapping the coast of
Australia, the Pont Neuf, the Reichstag, the gorgeous Surrounded Islands and
several lovely projects I had not known, to end with some lobbying for Over the River, the much contested endeavor
to hang fabric over the Arkansas River in Colorado. The exhibition included
very substantial drawings for each project as well as photographs of the
completed work and models for some. The collages are monumental and beautifully
drawn. Exhibition labels were very instructive and the catalogue is lovely and
useful.
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| Drawings for Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet Little Bay, Sydney, Australia, 1968-1069 |
Since we returned
home, I’ve learned a bit more. Reminded that some of the support for theproject came from the Beretta family, I see that the smaller island at the end
of the extension from Monte Isola is owned by that family and a family mansion
occupies it. Having seen the exhibition about Christo, with the early
installations referring to the Iron Curtain and other political issues, I
wonder if he purposely intended that visitors end their walking on water with
thoughts about the wealth created by the manufacture of weapons for death. I
can say I’ve been thinking about the beauty of the area, the pleasure of the
crowds, our own odyssey to get there and the political ramifications of the
work since we first arrived.
