He may sound unknown to many, but for an Italian like myself, he definitely is not. Two years after the realization of the famous yellow walking path on water titled The Floating Piers, on Lake Iseo in the North of Italy, the Bulgarian artist Christo has moved to London to create another stunning work of art.
The first time I heard about him, it led me to wake up at dawn to get to the small Italian lake – trying to avoid the exaggerated crowd for the event – and literally experience a crazy masterpiece, which consisted of 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric on the water which you could walk on.
This time everything seems to be easier, as the new sculpture rises in the middle of the biggest park in London. I went there yesterday, I wanted to see it with my eyes. As you stroll along the Serpentine Lake you can’t miss it, The London Mastaba is too big.
Following Christo’s special and unmistakable style, The London Mastaba is a huge temporary floating placement on the water of the great lake in Hyde Park.
Inaugurated two days ago at the presence of its creator, who worked there personally to place and install all the 7506 oil drums, it is accompanied by an exhibition of the artist in the heart of London, in the Serpentine Galleries.
The name is very original too: a mastaba is an Egyptian tomb, or a a trapezoid building in Mesopotamia or the modern word for bench in Arabic. Christo exploited the shape and also the colours, mixing purple, red and blue, creating an eye catching effect for the whole structure.
For most of his career, Christo worked with his wife, Jeanne-Claude, until her death in 2009; this work of art is dedicated to her, to her determination in free art, as he commented.
Until September 23, you can go and have a look. It is something that needs to be seen and as most of the modern art objects, you can fall in love with it or not…
#Peace.Love.Christo
