On this day in February 2005, New York City was aruffle over Mayor Bloomberg’s pet project: a piece of public art called The Gates by the artist known as Christo and his lady love, Jeanne-Claude.

I’d heard about it and had seen it in the news, but I had no idea how much controversy it had caused. Tonight I got the inside scoop at a sneak preview of the HBO documentary The Gates at St. Paul’s Minnesota Museum of American Art.

Christo is known for wrapping public buildings in fabric or in plastic—not always to the most glamorous effect, and for reasons that not even he can explain. “Do you ask a mother why she loves her baby?” says Jeanne-Claude.  read more »