At a press conference scheduled for this morning, city officials will announce plans for the installation of the much-anticipated work by husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in which 7,500 saffron-colored gates will be placed at 12-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

The two artists, who have financed “The Gates” themselves but required the cooperation of the city and the Parks Department, will also give the fullest-yet presentation of the exhibit. “The Gates” is scheduled to be up for 16 days, from February 12 though 27. But the coast of Little Bay, Australia, wasn’t wrapped in a day, and the loadin of the necessary materials is scheduled to begin soon.

Those who can’t wait should visit the National Academy Museum to see “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Wurth Museum Collection.” The 65 works on view there give a chronology of the working process of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, as well as presenting a wide range of their works, from the wrapped works of the 1950s to smaller drawings and finished public projects.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has already devoted an exhibit this year to the artists’ newest work. This spring, “On the Way to the Gates” chronicled the evolution of the work from its conception in 1979 to the current plan. The catalog for the show is available from Yale University Press (212 pages, $65).

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NOTES

Barbara Ehrenreich has won the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize, given annually by the Puffin Foundation Ltd. and the Nation Institute (owned by the Nation magazine) to “an American citizen who has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative, socially responsible work of significance,” and a $100,000 prize. … 12 Duffield: The Glen Seator Foundation has been established to promote the work of sculptor Glen Seator, who died at age 46 in 2002 after a fall from the roof of his house at 12 Duffield Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The foundation plans to publish a multi-volume catalogue raisonne of Seator’s work with Steidl Publishers in 2007 and organize a retrospective exhibition of his work in New York. … Photographer Catherine Opie has won the 12th-annual Larry Aldrich Award from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn. The prize includes a $25,000 purse and an exhibition at the Aldrich. … The Palestinian-born British artist Mona Hatoum is the winner of the Roswitha Haftmann Prize and $102,400 from the Swiss-based Roswitha Haftmann Foundation. The prize is one of the largest available to European artists. … French artist Carole Benzaken has won the Marcel Duchamp Prize for 2004 and $45,620, awarded by the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art. An exhibition of her work goes on view at the Centre Pompidou on December 8.