Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Central Park Gates “are charming bits of civic ornament,” writes Blake Gopnik. “They’re drawing New Yorkers out in crowds to stroll among and under them, and should continue to do so for the two weeks that they’re up. But as a work of outdoor art, in competition with the best of Bernini or even Henry Moore — and especially compared with some of the couple’s earlier projects — they’re unusually slight. It’s amazing how small the artistic return can be on a piece that fills 850 acres in the middle of one of the world’s great cities and looks set to cost $21 million before it’s done.”