Christo, the Big Nothing

These pronouncements were culled from the wall cards that the artists were unfortunately encouraged to write for an exhibit several months ago at the ICA in Philadelphia called The Big Nothing. All of them have helped me understand better the challenging vacuity of The Gates.

"Photography was my landscape; it was my reality."

"Absence is graphic."

"My art involves a vast personal cosmology of styles of being. Among these are pure materiality (the melted telephones) and pure subjectivity."

"These diaristic black paintings may be considered abstract portraiture."

"As surrogates these works insert blanks into the exchange economy of art."

"By filling her frames with signs of anti-material persistence, she effectively deflates art's much-vaunted aura."

"For me, art is a lack of power."