On the fence

“Is he still alive?” she asked.

It was an unintentionally poignant question, considering that Christo’s lifelong partner, Jeanne-Claude, died of complications from a brain aneurysm last year at age 74. born on the same day, June 13, 1935, the two met, married and began making art together in the late 1950s.

Famous for temporary, large-scale outdoor installations where they wrap or construct things with textiles or sheets of plastic, their latest project, “Over the River,” remains incomplete and, as usual with Christo’s work, controversial.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude came up with the idea for “Over the River” during completion of “The Pont Neuf Wrapped,” one of their better-known projects, where they wrapped the famous Parisian bridge in gold, plastic fabric. In 1992, they began years of searching for a location, and after exploring 89 rivers in the Rocky Mountains, they narrowed it to six. In 1996, they finally chose the Arkansas River in Colorado, over which 5.9 miles of translucent fabric panels would be suspended horizontally, like a canopy, and held in place by steel cables anchored into the river’s banks. The installation is intended to exist for only two weeks in the summer of 2014.

Locals from the Salida and Cañon City area, near the proposed installation, are divided. The New York Times talked to local artists and business owners excited for the potential economic boost it would bring the area from increased tourism.

But a local fishing and river guide told the Times: “We never sacrificed the real small-town nature of this place for quick development…. I don’t see any need to change that pace and risk fundamentally changing the nature of what we cherish so much here.”

Environmentalists are also divided. The Denver Post cites the Sierra Club’s local Sangre de Cristo group among supporters. The group’s support is based on “the [artist’s] plans to halt installation work during migration seasons for local birds and [promise] to work with the local railroad company to move long dormant lines of rail cars blocking views and animal traffic outside Cañon City.”

At the same time, a coalition of seven local environmental groups wrote in a letter opposing the project to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), “There are many places to view art, but there is only one Arkansas River Canyon. Attempting to make an art display in the canyon as proposed would despoil it.”

The environmental coalition argues that the project doesn’t meet criteria established by existing federal policy and land-management legislation. But the real heart of their opposition is in the details of what the project will actually do to the land.

If Christo is allowed to drill holes for support structures, the coalition claims, the BLM might not be justified in denying future requests from even more controversial industrial concerns, like mining companies. However, it seems likely that if the BLM wants to approve an art project and deny a strip mine, it’ll find a way.

The more compelling aspect of the coalition’s opposition is the impact the project could have on Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, Colorado’s official state animal. The years of construction required to install the support cables and suspended panels, the coalition argues in its letter, will either disrupt or displace roughly half of the bighorn sheep population: “More than 200 of the estimated total population of 410 sheep could be displaced. Since sheep have high fidelity to their home range, disturbance for more than two years (during installation, display and demobilization) may force them to stay in the area and suffer considerable stress, or flee… into marginal habitat with unreliable water sources. Either scenario could be devastating to sheep in winter….”

Neither The Denver Post nor The New York Times details these objections. Both articles acknowledge that environmental groups are divided and that critics claim the sheep population will be impacted, but neither examines the claim further.

The fact that bighorn sheep were once driven to near extinction in North America, that one sub-species did go extinct and two subspecies are currently endangered, should make any serious observer of the situation want to investigate debate surrounding the project’s potential impact on the sheep population.

Whatever you think of Christo’s conceptual, art-for-art’s-sake work, when you see his temporary structures, as fleeting as Buddhist sand mandalas, come to life—like his northern California “Running Fence,” the “Surrounded Islands” or “Valley Curtain”—it’s hard to deny that they have an aesthetic appeal. All the dialogue and contention, as much a fabric of the art as the material itself, seems worth it. And Christo’s beautiful, advance renderings of the projects, which he sells to fund them, are as impressive as the tenacious audacity Christo and Jeanne-Claude have shown.

But though these projects may be “message-free,” they are not value-free.

“Over the River” may be seen in part as Christo’s temporary Taj Mahal, a poetic tribute to Jeanne-Claude. And in a world dominated by monuments to consumption and permanence, why not a monument to the temporary power of art, endeavor and love?

Considering the efforts that Christo makes to minimize the art’s impact, it’s understandable why some environmentalists would support his effort.

Yet, the question of the project’s impact on the pristine habitat of the bighorn sheep remains and must be addressed seriously by supporters of “Over the River.”

A BLM decision is expected in February, 26 years after the project’s conception.

Write to dak@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com