WRAP MASTER

Kudos to William Wilson, whose wrapping of his narration (which, ironically, concerned Christo’s “Le Pont Neuf Empagnete” ) around the photographs of the wrapped Pont Neuf, the “Running Fence” and “Surrounded Islands” captures too admirably what one can expect of post-modern art criticism (“The World According to Christo,” Sept. 29).

“Central Park, New York,” hangs in the upper right corner of Wilson’s “World,” ripe with promise, emboldened with its capitalized “WASPS,” its “high drama narra-” leading the reader expectantly, as good prose should, to a peak of promise, into a virtual sweep of willing anticipation. That Wilson chose to bring us to climax with his “would blow up the project” directly below the “Surrounded Islands” photo only accentuates his daring and, in a distinctly post-type sense, his flare for the expected.

I hope to see more of this work in the future. It manages to be picturesque and it retains just enough of linear thought to satisfy the cadre of the art Establishment while warping the narrative line to provide a discontinuity that makes it comprehensible to the ordinary crowd.

DOUGLAS A. KERMODE

Long Beach

Kermode has a valid rap. The slinky paragraph in Wilson’s piece quoting Christo should have read: “You know most of the opposition to my (1983) ‘Surrounded Islands’ project in Biscayne Bay came from disgruntled artists who threatened me personally and said they would blow up the project. We did an impact study for my project called ‘The Gates’ in Central Park, New York. It turned out that the more the people were WASPs and wealthy, the more they opposed the project.”