File this under #ArtintheWild: The Valley Curtain in Colorado
⛰ We love having an office in Colorado - this beautiful state provides great inspiration, simply step outside and you have mammoth beauty of large scale all around. @christojeanneclaude must've agreed with this notion ~ their incredible 1972 "Valley Curtain" installation in Rifle, Colorado remains an iconic moment in the art world.
💦 Using land and water as a home for vibrant, large-scale works, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have created impressionable artworks worldwide. Valley Curtain was a 1972 environmental artwork in which the artists raised an orange curtain of fabric across a mountainous span of Colorado State Highway 325. 👉 See the incredible behind-the-scenes photos of the process below.
🗺 The work has a fascinating installation backstory: On August 10, 1972, between Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, a group of 35 construction workers and 64 temporary helpers (art-school and college students), and itinerant art workers tied down the last of 27 ropes that secured the 18,600 square meters (200,200 square feet) of woven nylon fabric orange curtain to its moorings at Rifle Gap, 7 miles north of Rifle, on Highway 325.
🧡 Because the curtain was suspended at a width of 381 meters (1,250 feet) and a height curving from 111 meters (365 feet) at each end to 55.5 meters (182 feet) at the center, the curtain remained clear of the slopes and the valley bottom. A 3-meter (10-foot) skirt attached to the lower part of the curtain visually completed the area between the thimbles and the ground. 😲 The cables spanned 417 meters (1,368 feet), weighed 61 tons and were anchored to 864 tons of concrete foundations. The Valley Curtain project took 28 months to complete. // #emotifExplores