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Christo and Jeanne-Claude are coming to Salida Thursday
night to open the annual Art Walk celebration, and to
promote their Over the River
project. They were here
about a month ago for Colorado's first Artposium,
and I got to see them.
They reminded me of the old Sonny and Cher
TV
show: He pontificated, she punctured. We laughed.
I had been advised that there would be protests outside
the hall where they spoke. The local opponents of Over
the River
had promised not to give Christo a free ride,
but I saw no signs and heard no catcalls.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude practice their art in a big
way, most recently with The Gates
project in New
York City's Central Park. Back in 1972, they hung a curtain
across Rifle Gap on the Western Slope; the wind destroyed
it. They have wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, placed 3,100
umbrellas in California and Japan, and surrounded islands
near Miami with floating pink sheets.
Over the River
involves suspending translucent
fabric over stretches of the Arkansas River between Salida
and Cañon City. Hundreds of anchored steel cables
would be strung across the river, then the curtains would
be attached to the cables. They would be 8 to 25 feet above
the river, so that rafts and kayaks could pass beneath.
All told, about six miles of river would be be covered, with significant gaps between the fabric zones. It would stand for two weeks in late summer -- the summer of 2011 at the earliest.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude first promoted Over the
River
about a decade ago, but then they got
sidetracked. Their Central Park Gates
project had
been opposed by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. After he left
office, the new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, supported the
project. So the artists worked in New York before returning
their attention to Colorado.
Now there's a 2,029-page Over The River Design and
Planning Report
on file with the federal Bureau of Land
Management office in Cañon City, which will
presumably lead to an Environmental Impact Statement. The
BLM is the lead agency; there are many other governmental
entities involved, from municipal and county officials to
the Colorado Department of Transportation to the Federal
Aviation Administration.
The theory seems to be that it is possible to predict and study all possible effects of the project, from highway lane closures during construction to the watering habits of resident bighorn sheep, and come to a scientific conclusion.
But can you really construct a risk-benefit ratio on a work of art? I'm rather agnostic on the project, but I know people who are passionately in favor of it, for reasons that range from aesthetic to financial. I also know people who are fervently opposed, for reasons that extend from public safety to concern about riverine eagles.
There isn't a scientific answer to this. For every statement about what an untrammeled vista the canyon offers, there's the counter that it's a venue that has been worked hard for the past 150 years -- railroad, highway, quarries, charcoal logging, etc.
So this is actually a political question, and it ought to be resolved in a political way, with an election. Let each side make its case to the affected public, hold a vote, and abide by it.
The Over the River
controversy reminds me of the
fight over Colorado hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics 35
years ago. The authorities told us the winter games would
be a boon the Colorado. Others said they would be an
immense drain on the state treasury and an inspiration to
trashy development in the mountains.
Dick Lamm, then in the state legislature and an opponent, found a way to put the Winter Olympics question on the 1972 ballot. Colorado voters agreed with him.
It did not hurt the state's economy to be the only place
in the world that turned down the games after being awarded
them. Throughout the 1970s, mountain landscapes turned into
real-estate at a dizzying rate. On occasion I heard
visitors say they decided to vacation here because
Colorado must be a really special place to turn down the
Olympics.
And if the Over the River
opponents win, this
area might get just as much traffic and congestion as
people flocked to see the place that turned Christo
down.
But either way, it ought to be a decision made by
the public, not by a federal agency.
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