You're perfectly free to attach some deeper meaning to Christo's art, the artist says, but he creates art because he loves it.

“We do a project for our own pleasure,” he said. “If that's gone, why do it?”

You know Christo. He and his late wife Jeanne-Claude hung a massive orange curtain across Rifle Gap (Valley Curtain) ran an 18-foot fence for miles through Marin and Sonoma counties in northern California (Running Fence) and dozens of other projects around the world.

Christo was in Vail last night for a sold-out Vail Symposium event in The Lodge at Vail.

Label wine, not artists

Labels are for wine bottles, not art, says Jeanne-Claude, with whom Christo created his life's work.

Let's take a shot anyway.

Christo is the world's foremost industrialist/environmentalist/entrepreneur/economist/diplomat/political refugee/negotiator artist.

That ought to about cover Bulgarian-born artist who escaped the Soviet Union, and who uses massive amounts of industrial material to create art.

He recycles every bit as he leaves no trace of himself or his work.

He employs hundreds of people as he wades through jungles of the red tape and mountains of bureaucracy to bring his visions to life.

“You cannot buy this material in a hardware store. It must be manufactured,” he said.

For The Gates project in New York's Central Park he bought 5,000 tons of steel. When it came down he sold it all back to the manufacturer, who sold it to someone else.

Over The River is proposed for the Arkansas River between Canon City and Salida, and will stretch along 42 miles of the river silvery fabric hung on 36 miles of steel cable.

“The projects are very complex to construct. The materials are simple,” he said.

Every project requires lawyers, engineers, skilled and unskilled laborers.

And like life itself, his work is fleeting. It stays up for only 14 days.

“People come from all over the world to see it being built, and after it's finished,” said Dan Telleen, a local who owns Karat's and helped Christo create Valley Curtain. “It's only up for 14 days. There's an urgency to get there and see it.”

Christo doesn't take government grants and he doesn't do jobs on commission. He can pay for everything himself because he works at it – 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

When Christo gets done with an 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper, it can be worth $50,000 to collectors or museums. A major project can produce up to 650 original works, he said.

Idea first

The idea is always first, he said.

Take Valley Curtain. He had sketched the idea for a curtain across a green valley. A friend lived in Western Colorado and brought Christo and Jeanne-Claude out to his summer home. George Nelson was a surveyor in the area who took them on a guided tour. It didn't take long to find the right spot.

Gov. John Love didn't like the idea, but he was up for re-election and the good people of Rifle soon helped him develop both his artistic and political sensibilities. Eventually, he helped give the orange curtain the green light.

When the Valley Curtain happened, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were on a hill looking down on the strikingly green valley, the river and highway running under the massive orange curtain.

“Oh, it's wonderful. It's just like the drawing,” he said.

Fourteen days later, it was gone.

“It reflects society, and ours is a society where things don't last very long. Things become obsolete very quickly.” Telleen said.

The Great Negotiator

“Everything in the world is owned by somebody,” he said.

Christo is one of the most charming people to draw breath on God's green earth. He has become so good at getting individuals and governments to let him build projects on their land that Harvard Law School dubbed him The Great Negotiator and gave him an honorary degree.

Ted Dougherty, who worked with Christo and Jeanne-Claude for years, used to joke that Christo's English isn't very good and he thinks “no” means he needs to do it some other way.

For 20 years they've chased approvals for Over the River and it looks like they're close. The state parks service gave its unanimous blessing. Gov. John Hickenlooper is on board.

Over the River will cover several miles of the Arkansas River, the most-rafted river in the world.

“That is why we chose it,” Christo said.

You'll be able to float under it on the river, drive above it on Highway 50 and generally wonder at the wonder of a work of art that's built with 36 miles of steel cable.

“It's up to you to feel it,” Christo said.

Slipping through the Iron Curtain

He's a political refugee

He was born in communist Bulgaria and lived there, under the Soviet Union studying art, until he was 21. An artist in a communist country could only travel to other communist countries, so he visited his father's relatives in Czechoslovakia in 1957 – about the time Hungary staged an uprising against Soviet rule.

When the Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary, he and 250,000 other refugees seized the opportunity and fled to Vienna. In 1958 Christo migrated to Paris where he survived by painting portraits. A striking young woman, Jeanne-Claude, sat for a portrait. Christo was smitten.

They were born the same day, June 30, 1935, and were married when they were 23 years old.

One of his first big pieces was in Paris, covered oil barrels called Iron Curtain. He made you think about it because you had to walk around the block to get around it. At the same time, the Soviets were building the real Iron Curtain, and it didn't come down in 14 days.

ROARing about art

Not everyone loves it.

In Northern California, a collection of artists formed Stop the Running Fence. They even had an art show. After the Running Fence was up and down, Stop the Running Fence ran for another two years.

Farmers wanted the fabric and you can still see haystacks covered with Running Fence canvas.

A Chaffee County group calling itself ROAR – Rags Over the Arkansas River - is loudly opposed to Over the River. It's impossible to say whether ROAR will roar after the so-called rags are rolled up.

So, are these massive projects landscape art? Performance art? Public art? Art for art's sake?

Yes, he says, smiling from under his long silver hair.



Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.