The London Mastaba (2016-18)
Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)
The London Mastaba, 2016-2018
7,506 oil barrels
20 metres H × 30 metres W x 40 metres Long
Serpertine Lake, Hyde Park
This isn’t my favourite Christo installation. It’s not even in my top five, but it is the only one I’ve experienced in person. Surrounded Islands (Miami, 1983), The Gates (NYC, 2005) and L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (Paris, 2021) were all theoretically possible visits but a variety of factors kept me away from those, so London Mastaba is the Christo work I get to write about.
Do I like it? Well, yeah, kinda. Seeing one of Christo’s outdoor installations (interventions? environmental art?) is a rare experience. They’re unlike any other outdoor art you’re ever likely to encounter. But the thing about the London Mastaba was that you couldn’t get anywhere near it. Sitting out there, correction, floating out there in the middle of the Serpentine it was a distanced work of art for everyone who wanted to look at it. That made it almost impossible to get a true sense of scale in order to fully understand just how big it might have been.
I remember the first time I went to visit the pyramids in Egypt. They’re big, and you know they’re big. But it wasn’t until I was standing directly next to one, and realised that I was barley half as tall as the base layer stones, that I fully appreciated just how capital B Big they are. I wanted to get that experience with the Mastaba but I couldn’t. It was in the middle of a lake and I wasn’t willing to splurge on a pedalo/paddleboat. True Londoners don’t do that.
But with this work, maybe that didn’t matter. The Serpentine is a long, large, 40-acre lake with a snakelike curve. It takes an hour to walk around it, and the red and blue barrels of the Mastaba loomed large from almost every inch of the edge. I still fondly recall my visit in July 2018. My partner and I walked around the Serpentine, taking silly selfies with the Mastaba in the background. The 7,506 brightly coloured barrels blocked your view of the bridge. They poked out over the landscape. They caught your attention through the trees. Seeing it from a distance was the only way to experience it and I wanted to experience it from every angle. Unfortunately that took a lot longer than my poor partner had anticipated.
Throughout their career, Christo and Jean Claude refused to assign meaning to their works, claiming their art was just meant to be enjoyed. That’s a powerful statement to make about installations that literally overwhelm the environment in which they temporarily exist. But what I’ve only recently learned while researching this article is that the entire thing was a façade. Literally. The inside is hollow except for the steel frame that holds the barrels. And yet the entire contraption still weighs 600 metric tons (660 US tons) and covers approximately 1% of the total surface area of the lake.
Those are interesting facts to ponder when you consider another unrealised Christo Mastaba that was initially envisioned in 1977. “Consisting of 410,000 coloured oil barrels, the work would be the largest sculpture in the world by volume. It would tower above the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and its footprint would correspond to the dimensions of St Peter's Square in Rome.” It is currently being considered as a permanent installation in Abu Dhabi.
Walking around the Abu Dhabi Mastaba would also certainly take longer than anticipated, but I hope that happens. It would provide a nice symmetry to the experience of seeing the one that floated in the Serpentine. But if that never comes to fruition, at least I still got to experience one Christo in person.
That’s why I like it.
You gotta play the hand you’re dealt.
Bonus: Abu Dhabi Mastaba
Here’s a scale model of the proposed Mastaba in Abu Dhabi, currently on display at Saatchi Gallery as part of the “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Boundless” show, running until 22 Jan 2024. Tickets from £8.
Previously, on Why I Like It:
Nov — The Rose (1958-66), Jay DeFeo
Oct — Acre of Green (2007), Nathan Slate Joseph
Sep — Fire! Fire! (1963-4), Enrico Baj