Christo’s art of self-promotion
The death of the artist Christo last week in New York at 84 has been the occasion for an outpouring of misty-eyed adulation. I thought I would temper that wave of sentimentality by reprising a column I wrote about him back in 2005 on the occasion of ‘The Gates’, his huge project in Central Park in Manhattan: Andy Warhol once remarked that ‘art is what you can get away with’. And how. Just ask Christo, the Bulgarian-born entrepreneur who wraps things in cloth, calls it Art and sits back while the money pours into his bank account. It is nice work if you can get it. In 2004, Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (they work together, like Lady Bracknell and the Duchess of Bolton) took in about $15.1 million. And for what?
