Negotiating with authorities as part of the art itself

From the Harvard Law School’s Project on Negotiation:

Among the artists who most explicitly deal with business and law are Jean-Claude, whose "massive art installations, often using nylon or woven fabric to highlight buildings or works of nature. Their most recent project (2005), "The Gates," consisted of 7,503 16-foot-tall steel gates with suspended swaths of saffron-colored nylon that snaked through 23 miles of paths in Central Park." While art may not seem like an area rife with negotiation, the nature of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's large-scale works invariably requires coordinating with a variety of stakeholders including local, state, and federal officials, community groups, environmentalists, landowners, and the general public. The two received the 2008 Great Negotiator Award on Sept. 23 from the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School, which recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution. . . . Christo said that often the negotiating process itself infuses a project with importance. In discussing the "Wrapped Reichstag," the parliament building in Berlin that was veiled by the artists in more than 1 million square feet of woven polypropylene in 1995, Christo said the opposition to the effort by then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl only heightened the work's significance. In an attempt to stop them, Kohl ordered a roll-call vote in parliament. To garner support, the artists canvassed the country talking to the parliament members' constituents to plead their case. Ultimately, they persuaded 79 members of Kohl's conservative party to vote with them and approve the project. "The permitting process creates the identity of the work. ... It creates the dynamics, power, identity. The process sometimes makes the work more important, much more important than we could imagine."" target="_blank">Christo and Jean-Claude, whose “massive art installations, often using nylon or woven fabric to highlight buildings or works of nature. Their most recent project (2005), “The Gates,” consisted of 7,503 16-foot-tall steel gates with suspended swaths of saffron-colored nylon that snaked through 23 miles of paths in Central Park.”

While art may not seem like an area rife with negotiation, the nature of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s large-scale works invariably requires coordinating with a variety of stakeholders including local, state, and federal officials, community groups, environmentalists, landowners, and the general public.

The two received the 2008 Great Negotiator Award on Sept. 23 from the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School, which recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution. . . .

Christo said that often the negotiating process itself infuses a project with importance.

In discussing the “Wrapped Reichstag,” the parliament building in Berlin that was veiled by the artists in more than 1 million square feet of woven polypropylene in 1995, Christo said the opposition to the effort by then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl only heightened the work’s significance.

In an attempt to stop them, Kohl ordered a roll-call vote in parliament. To garner support, the artists canvassed the country talking to the parliament members’ constituents to plead their case. Ultimately, they persuaded 79 members of Kohl’s conservative party to vote with them and approve the project.

“The permitting process creates the identity of the work. … It creates the dynamics, power, identity. The process sometimes makes the work more important, much more important than we could imagine.”