Banner day draws near

The condition for the interview is, “Everything I am going to say through my mouth is from Christo and Jeanne-Claude.” Only one of them is speaking, but it should not be hard to determine which of the husband-and-wife pair -- the Bulgaria-born artist or his voluble French mate and muse, both 69 -- is describing their quarter-century-long quest to erect saffron-colored fabric “gates” throughout Central Park. The freewheeling conversation about the project -- which, weather permitting, will be on display Saturday through Feb. 27 -- reveals among other things: Why 26 years is not an unprecedented wait for them; why you’d better not say they’re “wrapping” Central Park; and why their friend and booster, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is richer than we are.

The Times: Is it starting to feel like a reality?

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Now we are close. But for the last two years we have had to rent an assembly plant in Queens. We had to order 5,000 tons of steel for the bases. That is the equivalent of two-thirds of the steel of the Eiffel Tower.

Either that or one Richard Serra sculpture.

About a thousand Richard Serra sculptures. Well, it is the largest purchase order in their 150 years of existence, even though it is that same company who produced the steel for, during the Civil War, the famous Monitor. You remember the Monitor?

With the round turret.

And we had to order the 60 miles of vinyl poles and the aluminum corners, etc. So it has been a reality for a long time.

But you’ve waited a third of a lifetime, 26 years.

It is not our longest project. In 1998, we finally could realize our wish to wrap the trees in Switzerland, which we had started in 1966. That is 32 years. And the Reichstag in Berlin took us 25. But of course in between those years we don’t sit at home crying because we have refusal. We do a few little other things.

How long did the umbrellas in California and Japan take?

Very fast. It went from ’84 to ’91. Let me count in French. Let’s say 7 1/2 years.

You used to take your son to Central Park?

From 1964, when he was 4, when we arrived in New York. Yes, in those years we were good parents. And I was a good mother. I would take Cyril every day to climb the rocks. I even started a fashion there because I could not read -- I had to be watching him all the time. I started picking up the garbage and everybody thought I was crazy. But not even a year later everybody started doing it.

You live in the same modest SoHo apartment to this day?

The place is modest because the stairway is a disaster. Christo’s studio has not been painted in 40 years. We have the luxury of using five floors, and that is fantastic. I would say one-eighth of a floor is living. That’s our bedroom. Because home and office is on the same floor, the fourth floor. No elevator. We used to say that we work at home. Now we say we live at the office.

Did you ever ...?

Don’t make the mistake of the [New York] Post, which said we’re going to “wrap” Central Park. There is no wrapping.

But you were wrapping before rap had its current meaning.

In 1972, in Colorado, we created the “Valley Curtain.” It has nothing to do with wrapping. It is a curtain hanging from two mountaintops. The media called it the “wrapped curtain.” In 1976, we created “Running Fence” in Sonoma and Marin counties in Northern California. It was 24 1/2 miles of white nylon fabric panels suspended from a steel cable, running up and down the crest of the hills. The media called it the “wrapped fence.” In 1983, we surrounded 11 islands in Biscayne Bay with pink floating fabric. The islands were surrounded very much like England is surrounded by water. England is not wrapped in water. But the media called it the “wrapped islands.” That is because they had it in their head that we are the wrapping artist. Now they write that we are going to wrap Central Park, which is preposterous.

They’re in a rut. Why did you decide to do “gates” here?

“The Gates” is not the first project we wanted to do in New York City. In 1964, ’65 there was a project to wrap two Lower Manhattan buildings. Permission was denied. Then we tried in ’68 with the Museum of Modern Art, to have MoMA be the first in the world of public buildings to be wrapped. Permission was denied. We also wanted to wrap No. 1 Times Square. Permission was denied. We wanted to wrap the Whitney Museum. Permission was denied.

Do you take it personally?

You bet we do. We are human beings. We do understand when we get a refusal it is not necessarily the fault of the person from whom we request the permit. We probably have not been intelligent enough to convey the message of exactly what we wish.

Did you ever think of giving up on this one?

Never. We have until now created 18 projects. We have failed 37 projects. We got a refusal, and we lost interest. Because every project we create is an idea which came out of our two hearts and our two heads. And we create for us, ourselves, and our collaborators. Once it is no longer in our heart, of course, it’s finished. And why on earth should we do it? [But] there are projects for which we never lost interest after refusals, many refusals, [like] “The Pont Neuf” [in Paris], which we started in 1975. And that was the last time in our life we have an idea about wrapping. But it took us 10 years of constant battle, and it is only in 1985 we could do it. We started the wrapped Reichstag in Berlin in 1971. It took us 24 years to get the permit, and the following year it was completed. We received three refusals but never lost interest. The same with “The Gates.”

What is the key to dealing with New York? Do you just outlast the bureaucracy? Do you compromise?

We don’t compromise, but New York is not just the government, it is also the people and the important people. Those movers and shakers in the case of “The Gates” were the Central Park Conservancy. It is a group of very rich, very generous people who have spent $300 million of their own money to upkeep, renovate and make Central Park what it is today. For years, the conservancy did not like the idea, and we did not even talk to the government.

When did you know you had a champion?

Until 2 1/2 years ago, we’re telling everybody the next project we’ll complete will be “Over the River” for the Arkansas River in Colorado. Then the miracle happened for us. A man who was an old friend and great fan of all our projects was elected mayor, Michael Bloomberg. At his inauguration, while we were kissing each other, he said, “You know, even when I was only a candidate, people were telling me, if you become the mayor, we will see ‘The Gates.’ ” We came home that day of the inauguration, and I remember telling Christo, “Mayor Bloomberg has just inherited the calamity NYC. We are going to leave him alone until June.” In March we got a phone call from City Hall and the ball was rolling.

Did you allow yourself a celebration when you got the final green light? You’re French, perhaps a champagne toast.

Don’t drink champagne because of our stomach. We celebrate, yes. But I can’t remember if we had dinner with friends or if we went home and ate the usual doggy bags from the freezer.

What do “The Gates” mean?

One hundred fifty years ago, the city of New York purchased a large piece of land and asked two landscape architects, Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Vaux, to design a park. [Frederick Law] Olmsted and [Calvert] Vaux surrounded Central Park with a stone wall. But from time to time [they] interrupted the wall, there’s a walkway. In that interruption it was a plan to place steel gates so that Central Park could be locked at night. But something happened that officially was called the “War of the Gates.” The designer chosen by the city submitted a proposal of gates that Mr. Olmsted found so horrible, so elaborate, so ornate. So he left. And then the city decided that no steel gate will be placed. But those openings remained, called gates, until today.

The shape of our gates comes from Central Park. Central Park is surrounded by hundreds of city blocks in a perfectly right-angle geometric grid, north, south, east, west. That grid, you find it in the geometric rectangular shape of our gates. But Olmsted and Vaux designed the walkways in a very serpentine shape. And that you find in the rounded movement of our fabric moving in the wind. “The Gates” in Central Park is absolutely a project for Central Park, in name and in shape.

What about the color?

The saffron color is simply an aesthetic decision. We love that color. We have chosen February because it is the only month of the year where we can be almost sure that there will be no leaves on the branches of the trees. The sun is very low in the sky, giving long shadows. When the sun is behind fabric panel, that will become golden yellow while the portion of the fabric in the shade becomes deep red.

Didn’t you originally propose doing it in the fall?

Yes, because to Europeans fall means to fall down. We thought the fall is when the leaves fall down from the trees. But through the years we observed Central Park, in October, November, December, those damn leaves wouldn’t fall.

Any last-minute fears?

Our mayor came to our assembly plant and said, “Any problems?” I said, “Well, Michael, the weather.” He said, “I’ll take care of it.” We want to create a work of art, of joy and beauty. And for our workers also it has to be joy. That is why we always say Feb. 12, “weather permitting.” A little bit of gentle snow, we can work. But in a horrible storm, no, we will wait.

How many will people will show up?

We have no idea and if you have seen “Gone With the Wind,” “Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a hoot.” Because we don’t do it for the people, we do it for us. If other people like it, it’s a bonus.

And you are paying for it by selling Christo’s art?

If we don’t sell we cannot build. We’re not rich people. We spend everything we have and everything we can borrow from the bank and no money back.

That’s un-American.

That’s why we have problems. They think either Christo and Jeanne-Claude are lying or they’re crazy. And since we are not lying we are probably crazy. And by the way, I’m sure you already know, money is like manure. It’s good only if you spread it around.

The umbrellas cost $26 million in 1991. That is probably $40 million today. Not so easy to sell. We have taken the precaution of arranging with a bank in Europe to have a line of credit. If by chance we wouldn’t sell fast enough our workers would all be paid.

What can you sell?

You can look at the preparatory works on the website [christojeanneclaude.net]. There are drawings and collages and there are prep works for other [projects]. And we sell work we have in our storages of the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s. We sell everything we have but our son.

With a project in New York do the prices go up?

Yes, the prices went up the moment we got the permit. And if we happened to have a shortage, even though Christo works in his studio 17 hours a day every day, then the price will go up again. Now you know we live in America. Supply and demand.

So what do these pieces cost?

For “The Gates,” it starts for the very small ones at $30,000. As the dimension grows then the price grows like children. The bigger they are, the more they cost. Very large ones 8 feet across or 8 feet high, I would think for “The Gates,” the very large ones are $600,000. For the “Over the River” it’s half the price because Christo has all the time in the world to create more. Christo never creates a preparatory drawing or collage once a project is completed.

What has the mayor bought?

He bought a large one and a medium-sized one. Before we got the permit. And he didn’t pay that [much] because the price went up after we got the permit.

So now we know how he became a billionaire.

No, but he knew we needed the money to start. He knew the next day we’re going to place an order of 5,000 tons of steel.