Making Rivers Visible
Covering several miles of the Arkansas River with fabric, for the fleeting time span of 2 weeks, is the vision of Christo's "Over the River " project which made the news last week in a New York Times article. The internationally acclaimed artist, most famous for wrapping Germany's Reichstag, has been developing the concept for the river project since 1992. He and his late wife, Jeanne Claude, searched the Western US looking for a suitable river, and finally settled on an upstream stretch of the Arkansas River in SE Colorado. The project has been designed in painstaking detail, documented in a 2008 art exhibit of Christo's paingings at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, illustrating what it will look like when completed. [Click here for a 2 min video of Christo and Jeanne Claude introducing the exhibit; click here for the exhibit catalog, published by Taschen.].
Last week the US Bureau of Land Management released a 4-volume Environmental Impact Statement, about the project, evidence that it is indeed moving along towards construction (2 years), display (2 weeks) and then dismantling so that nothing remains except the memories. The cost: around $50m, all financed by Christo through the sale of his art. What's it for? You're not really supposed to ask. It's art, and that's about all that Christo himself offers by way of explanation.
Covering up rivers is an old tradition in cities around the world, but it's usually done with culverts and concrete, and the cover-up lasts for decades or even centuries, not just a few weeks. Christo's river cover-up is designed, I think it is safe to say, to do the opposite: to make the river visible, to help us see and appreciate what is under wraps. Isn't that what art is all about, making visible what normally goes unnoticed?
"Daylighting" streams and rivers that have been covered up and forgotten is a growth industry these days, part of an emerging water engineering "mea culpa" that includes decommissioning of dams. As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. In Seoul, South Korea, a small river through the main business district was uncovered to the immense appreciation of the 90,000 pedestrians who go out of their way to walk along its banks each day. [Click here for details]. In Yonkers, New York there is a similar story about the Saw Mill River being uncovered. And in some cities, like Halifax, Nova Scotia, sewer crews are required to consider daylighting buried streams whenever maintenance is needed, as a way of gradually reversing the unfortunate practice.
Then there are the rivers that are culturally invisible, those ignored and neglected rivers that no one seems to see. A new book about Santa Fe Icons describes 50 symbols that make Santa Fe, New Mexico (my fair city) distinctive. The historic Santa Fe River which flows right through the city center, in plain view, didn't make the list. It made #1 in the list of the county's Most Endangered Rivers in 2007, and was the reason the colonial government of New Spain established their northern headquarters here 400 years ago, but today it is as invisible as if it were buried in a culvert. Christo, we need your help! Please wrap our river too, so we can learn to see it again!
Santa Fe River - July 17, 2010
Last week the US Bureau of Land Management released a 4-volume Environmental Impact Statement, about the project, evidence that it is indeed moving along towards construction (2 years), display (2 weeks) and then dismantling so that nothing remains except the memories. The cost: around $50m, all financed by Christo through the sale of his art. What's it for? You're not really supposed to ask. It's art, and that's about all that Christo himself offers by way of explanation.
Covering up rivers is an old tradition in cities around the world, but it's usually done with culverts and concrete, and the cover-up lasts for decades or even centuries, not just a few weeks. Christo's river cover-up is designed, I think it is safe to say, to do the opposite: to make the river visible, to help us see and appreciate what is under wraps. Isn't that what art is all about, making visible what normally goes unnoticed?
"Daylighting" streams and rivers that have been covered up and forgotten is a growth industry these days, part of an emerging water engineering "mea culpa" that includes decommissioning of dams. As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. In Seoul, South Korea, a small river through the main business district was uncovered to the immense appreciation of the 90,000 pedestrians who go out of their way to walk along its banks each day. [Click here for details]. In Yonkers, New York there is a similar story about the Saw Mill River being uncovered. And in some cities, like Halifax, Nova Scotia, sewer crews are required to consider daylighting buried streams whenever maintenance is needed, as a way of gradually reversing the unfortunate practice.
Then there are the rivers that are culturally invisible, those ignored and neglected rivers that no one seems to see. A new book about Santa Fe Icons describes 50 symbols that make Santa Fe, New Mexico (my fair city) distinctive. The historic Santa Fe River which flows right through the city center, in plain view, didn't make the list. It made #1 in the list of the county's Most Endangered Rivers in 2007, and was the reason the colonial government of New Spain established their northern headquarters here 400 years ago, but today it is as invisible as if it were buried in a culvert. Christo, we need your help! Please wrap our river too, so we can learn to see it again!
Santa Fe River - July 17, 2010
Posted by Dave Groenfeldt at 18 Jul 2010, 9:59 PM 
Categories: Water Aesthetics, River Art
Tags: Santa Fe River Christo Arkansas River Art Activism Daylighting Rivers
Categories: Water Aesthetics, River Art
Tags: Santa Fe River Christo Arkansas River Art Activism Daylighting Rivers
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