The closer you get...

Ambivablog thinks "The Gates" look nice from a distance, like Buddhist monks' robes:

But when I walked through and under them, the fabric looked heavy and inert, more like drapes than filmy wind-yielding robes. (There wasn't any wind, was part of the problem.) And there was something claustrophobic and oppressive about the way they hung straight across, like Christiane Amanpour's bangs...