A couple thoughts on Christo: 1. The "waste of resources" argument never held too much importance in my mind, because he and JC were able to pay for the art i

A couple thoughts on Christo: 1. The "waste of resources" argument never held too much importance in my mind, because he and JC were able to pay for the art installations on their own, as "wasteful" as that may be. That they were able to convince wealthy donors to pony up $ is something I'm sure many aspire to. And who are we to complain if someone can get others to believe in an idea with private funding? VCs, anyone? Kudos to them for their persuasiveness. And separately, on the apparent quantities of material -- much of that was pretty completely recycled (metal, plastic), so it was chiefly the manufacturing and installation labor that was really spent. You could equally say that it also produced jobs wherever their art went. 2. I think the thing that leaves the more dissatisfied taste in my mouth is that much of it didn't seem like very innovative or even subjectively amazing art. It only seemed to be self-fulfilling. In the sense that it was like the Kardashians -- they only seem to be popular because everyone says they're popular. Yet I don't get why they're popular. And similarly, looking at the art itself, if you didn't know better, nothing would say, "amazing", "world changing". (personal taste, of course) You almost suspect that Christo's beginnings were spaghetti thrown against the wall, seeing if anyone would buy into some silly idea of wrapping something in colored plastic, like he was grasping for artistic straws. And it was only because he proposed something so large and crazy that it was different. And then when the first or 2nd one got some odd traction, it turned into an unexpected snowball. If he hadn't gotten any early success, you wouldn't look at the ideas and retrospectively say they were stunning, and what a shame they didn't get built. I will say that the NYC gates and others that people were able to walk through and enjoy en masse were fun. But people like walking around in colorful new things anyway -- occupy the family for a couple hours. You wouldn't call Disneyland "art" exactly. And it never shook me out of the nagging thought that there was something disproportionate -- maybe even "unfair" or overhyped about the popular success of the guy -- much like if the boss's son were to be winning a bunch of art shows sponsored by the family. Or that he was only an "artist" by virtue of being able to get people to pay for his experiments and the bigness of them. Anyway, at least we have the memories to think about.