Metropolitan Museum of Art

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York
The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery, 1st floor
April 6, 2004 — July 25, 2004

This exhibition documents the evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979–2005, conceived by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Scheduled for presentation during 16 days in February 2005, the completed project will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates set up at 12-foot intervals along 23 miles of pedestrian walkways that lace New York's Central Park. The exhibition traces the development of this project, begun in 1979, through the display of 51 preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 64 photographs, and 11 maps and technical diagrams. Also on view are components of one of the actual 16-foot-tall gates. Accompanied by a publication.

The exhibition is made possible by an anonymous donor. All works in the exhibition are courtesy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century
The European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Galleries
April 29, 2004 — August 8, 2004

Dangerous Liaisons focuses on dress and its aesthetic interplay with art, furniture, and the broader decorative arts between 1750 and 1789. Presented in the dramatic setting of The Wrightsman Galleries, the Museum's French period rooms, the exhibition explores the dressed body’s spatial negotiation of the 18th-century interior as a choreography of seduction and erotic play. The coquettish Polonaise dress with its hem raised to reveal the ankle is juxtaposed with a side table that transforms into a dressing table through mechanisms similar to the gown’s hidden ties. The arch of the foot introduced by shoes with a Louis-style heel is seen with the scrolling legs of tables and chairs from the period shod in ormolu sabots. Lavish banyans, the “undress” of 18th-century rakes, and fans, an accessory that could be wielded with both decorous and flirtatious intent, are presented as the favored modes of beguilement of the 18th-century man about town and his femme du monde counterpart.

The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are made possible by Asprey. Additional support has been provided by Condé Nast.

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