Mastaba London – Christo & Jeanne Claude
Christo created a temporary sculpture in Hyde Park, London, titled The London Mastaba, Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park, 2016-18. It was floating on the Serpentine Lake from June 18 to September 23, 2018. This was Christo’s first major public, outdoor work in the UK. The temporary sculpture coincided with an exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work (June 19 to September 9, 2018), which included sculptures, drawings, collages and photographs spanning more than 60 years. The sculpture and the exhibition both drew on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s history of using barrels to create works of art.
Since the late 1960s, Christo had sought a suitable site for a floating Mastaba. The temporary sculpture in Hyde Park consisted of 7,506 horizontally stacked barrels on a floating platform in the Serpentine Lake. It was 20 meters (65.5 ft) high x 30 meters (90 ft) wide (at the 60° slanted walls) x 40 meters (130 ft) long. The standard 55 gallon barrels, 59 x 88 cm (2 ft x 3 ft), were specifically fabricated and painted for this sculpture. The sides of the barrels, visible on the top and on the two slanted walls of the sculpture, were painted red and white. The ends of the barrels, visible on the two vertical walls, were different hues of red, blue, and mauve.
