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| By Steven Baker |
(Jo Dungey writes) In
June this year, London’s Hyde Park acquired a dramatic new feature. The London Mastaba is a huge sculpture,
temporarily installed to float on The Serpentine lake.
Several members of Urban Sketchers London have worked on location
in Hyde Park to create works portraying the London Mastaba, which we show here.
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| By Andrea Deng |
The sculpture is the work of Christo and Jeanne Claude,
artists known for the creation of huge environmental installations. These have involved wrapping famous buildings
such as the Reichstag in Berlin, and the Pont Neuf in Paris. They have also created huge interventions in
landscape, including Running Fence in California, and Valley Curtain in the
Rocky Mountains, Colorado, USA.
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| By Lis Watkins |
The London Mastaba is made from 7,506 horizontally stacked
barrels painted in red, white, blue and mauve.
Historically, a mastaba was a type of flat-topped tomb built in ancient
Egypt. This form was used to create a
huge installation which floats on The Serpentine lake.
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| By Jo Dungey |
The nearby Serpentine Gallery is presenting an exhibition: Christo
and Jeanne Claude: Barrels and The Mastaba 1958-2018. The exhibition includes sculptures, drawings,
collages, scale models and photographs from the last sixty years of the two
artists’ work.
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| From the exhibition |
The exhibition runs until 9 September 2018 and the London
Mastaba is installed until 23 September 2018. Reflections glittering in the Serpentine waters, the London Mastaba is a symbol of London's long, hot summer. See it if you can.
