Christo's Latest Art Project Angers Locals

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 27th 2010 at 7:01PM

Artist Christo is causing controversy yet again with another of his massive projects which involve huge draperies of fabric. The LA Times reports that the artist wants to hang translucent fabric over 5.9 miles of the Arkansas River in Colorado, 115 miles south of Denver. The project, titled "Over the River" has been in the works for years but as it heads gets closer to becoming a reality the voices against it are getting louder.

His famous projects have included wrapping islands off of Miami in fabric and installing a series of saffron-colored fabric gates in Central Park. Christo and his partner Jeanne-Claude spent over 40 years creating these massive installations around the world. She died in 2009 but the work goes on. If "Over the River" gets approval it would open in summer 2014 for two weeks. Like many of Christo's projects this would take a couple of years to pull off and this one would cost at least $50 million. Christo has created a designated website for the project which shows renderings of a river of fabric suspended above the river.

Environmentalists are at odds on the work. The Sierra Club's local group chose to support the project but others who live and work in the area think that the project will cause disruption and put this area at risk on several different levels, both affecting local businesses and local wildlife. They have banded together to appeal to the Bureau of Land Management which should decide the project's fate this spring.

Tags: art installation, christo, colorado, over the river