Artists display fabric gates in Central Park

For two weeks in February, walkways in Central Park, New York City, will be festooned with 37km of saffron-coloured fabric gates by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude in a public art project they have sought to do for 23 years.

The artists had unsuccessfully tried for years to win city approval for the piece, titled The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979 to 2005, until Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a patron of the arts, agreed to it.

The two artists have previously wrapped the German Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in Paris in fabric and surrounded part of Australia's coast in cloth.