Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation, called The Gates, one of their large-scale works, was placed in Central Park, New York City. The work is made up of over 7,500 gates with saffron-colored fabric panels that hang down, occupying the walkways of the park. The Gates began at the entrance to the park and its name takes inspiration from the openings scattered on the stone walls that separate the park from the city, also called gates by its architects. Passing through the sixteen foot high gates, one may encounter arrays ranging in width from six to eighteen feet. There is no discernible composition, no focal point, and it conveys no narrative or illusionism. It was a successful public art event that transformed the park and the minds of its participants. While many of their installation projects take months and years to finalize, they all go through software and hardware phases, and no project can exist without one or the other. Christo Javacheff (Bulgarian) and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat (French) were both born on 13 June 1935 and since he was six years old he wanted to become an artist. He studied at the Sofia Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and the earliest influences on his artistic executions, which involve extensive production technique and the creation of real materials in real spaces, are the artists Russians Vladimir Tatlin and El Lissitzy (Fineberg 13). Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) studied philosophy at the University of Tunis and says she became an artist because she married someone (The Gates). They moved permanently to New York in 1964, some of their most popular works in the United States are Valley Curtain in Colorado, Running Fence in California, Surrounded Islands in Florida and The Umbrellas in California, th...... middle of paper. .....Masses At The Gates." Dissent (00123846) 52.3 (2005): 93-96. EducationResearch Complete. Web. October 18, 2013. Norton, Anna Belle Wilder. "Site-specific art gets a wrap of the sit: Illustrating the limitations of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 through a study of the unique art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Cumberland Law Review. 2009. 39-749.Oliveira, Nicolas, Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry, and Michael Archer Installation Art.Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. Print.Panhorst, Michael W. Rev. of Critical Issues In. Public Art: Content, context and controversy. Harriet F. Senie and Sally Webster. " Winterthur Portfolio 29.1 (1994): 99. Print. Sibbald, Barbara. “Through the Gates.” Canadian Medical Association. Journal 172.8 (2005):1048-50. ProQuest. Network. 23 Sep. 2013. The Gates. Dir. Antonio Ferrera and Albert Maysles. Film by Lorber.