Spectacle: Orange you glad for an art education?
Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by Avril in Art, media, spectacle
There are very few things in this world that give me the warm fuzzies inside. (Aside, apparently, from the Cajun Popcorn Shrimp at Gabby’s – that sensation, I found out, is just straight-up heartburn).
Cute babies. (Note how I do not just say “babies” – a harrowing university job at the Sears Portrait studio has taught me the two are indeed mutually exclusive). Old people who hold hands. And cheeseball commercials — often layered with the delicate strummings of some crunchy granola acoustic singer. I can’t even watch that immigrant Tim Horton’s ad without getting teary.
So it was unsurprising that AT&T’s “Rethink Possible” commercial caught my eye.
Nick Drake’s folksy melody is the perfect whimsical backdrop for sweeping scenes of bolts of billowing orange silk being unfurled across some of America’s most iconic landscapes: the St. Louis arches, the Las Vegas Strip, and the beckoning white sign that’s adorned Hollywood’s hills for decades. All of this, of course, to promote the company’s supposed wide-stretching 3G network.
But for art junkies around the world, these scenes might look a little… familiar. New York City residents might remember 2005 when Central Park’s grey, winter sprawl became the canvas for “The Gates”, a large-scale installation by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Using wide panels of saffron material, they draped 23 miles of park paths in February of that year.
The pair were known for their covered art; creating novel ways of seeing familiar landscapes by enshrouding them. They were responsible for the wrapping of the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, the Reichstag in Berlin, and also Little Bay in Sydney Australia – a feat that used up 17,000 work hours and 9,300 square metres of synthetic fabric.
To some, though, the commercial feels like less of an ”homage” than it does a flat-out ”rip-off”. Given Jeanne-Claude’s recent passing, the main sting came from finding out the television spot is not actually a commissioned tribute, as it might appear to be.
But does it really matter that the concept bears a striking resemblance to past art works? Doesn’t just about every creative venture, in some way, draw from a point of inspiration - be it literature, music, art, or life?
In her lifetime Jeanne-Claude maintained that there was never a cryptic purpose behind the installations. According to her, the pair’s philosophy centred solely on the idea of creating “works of art, of joy, and beauty.”
Free spirited Jeanne-Claude (left) and Christo (right) - Photo by Bryan Obrien
The AT&T ad may be just a CGI rendering of a series of real-life wonders. (It’s even more awe-inspiring when you think the two paid for all the materials they used themselves; they never accepted grants or donations to support their art). But the resulting images provoke the same sense of imagination in a way that just might have appealed to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s sensibilities.
And if a stupid, cheeseball commercial manages to do that…well then you’ve already gotten way more out of 30 seconds of air time than seeing those Rogers Wireless kids.
Jef
Jun 14th, 2010
That photo of them at the end looks like a happy-ending shot of the characters from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Cool-ass couple, nice ad.