Their last act was “Barrels and the Mastaba” planned by Christo and Jeanne-Claude since 1977 to be performed in the United Arab Emirates. But those plans changed and it was finally performed in London in 2018, nine years after Jeanne-Claude’s death. This project consisted of a 20-meter high mastaba, built with 7,506 barrels of oil stacked together. The 55-gallon barrels were colored to resemble a mosaic.
The London Mastaba was a temporary floating installation that was on display from June 19 to September 9, 2018. It sat on a high-density polyethylene floating platform, supported by 32 anchors, and weighed 600 tons. The work, located in Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park, was carried out with 7,506 barrels stacked, painted red, blue, purple and white, and anchored to a floating platform.
The London Mastaba - Photo by acuteart.com
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria on June 13, 1935, and died in New York on May 31, 2020. He had a long relationship with Jeanne-Claude who was born in Casablanca, Morocco on June 13, 1935, until his death on November 18, 2009. Born on the same day in Bulgaria and Morocco, respectively, the couple met and married in Paris in the late 1950s. Both were a couple of artists who made environmental art installations. These are characterized by the use of fabric to c giant buildings or cover large public areas.
The first of their large installations was the “5,600 Cubicmeter Package” from 1968.
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