The Gates, Project for Central Park, New York City
2003

The Gates was a site-specific, public work of art conceived by Christo and his wife and collaborator of many decades, Jeanne-Claude, and installed on twenty-three miles of pathways in New York’s Central Park from February 12-27, 2005. The project was comprised of 7,503 “gates”―post and lintel constructions evoking Japanese torii gates placed at the entrance to Shinto shrines―each draped with a panel of nylon saffron fabric. A feat of bureaucratic, technical, and civic planning, the project demanded tremendous resources. As with all of their large-scale works, Christo and Jeanne-Claude raised money to fund The Gates through sales of preparatory studies and sketches, including The Gates, Project for Central Park, New York City. This mixed media work on paper juxtaposes an aerial topographical view of the park with draftsman renderings of specific fabrication elements and a depiction of the installation itself.