Christo in London
John Hill
5. April 2018
Christo, The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake) (Photo: André Grossmann © 2017 Christo)
Christo's first major outdoor public artwork in the UK will be a temporary sculpture, The Mastaba, that will float on Serpentine Lake in London's Kensington Gardens this summer.
Construction of The Mastaba, which will coincide with an exhibition on Christo & Jeanne-Claude at Serpentine Galleries, started this week. The temporary sculpture consists of nearly 7,000 oil barrels — or about 1.7% of the 410,000 barrels for The Mastaba, a project proposed for Abu Dhabi in 1977. Still in progress, the UAE Mastaba would be Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s only permanent large-scale work and the largest sculpture in the world: it would be the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza but considerably wider.
London's smaller version of The Mastaba will float on Serpentine Lake from 18 June (weather permitting) to 23 September 2018.
Christo in his studio with a preparatory drawing for The Mastaba, 2012 (Photo: Wolfgang Volz © 2012 Christo)
The site of The Mastaba in Serpentine Lake, with Serpentine Galleries in the top-left and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain at bottom-left.
