Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Barrels and The Mastaba 1958-2018

the long version

This fully illustrated catalogue is published on the occasion of 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Barrels and The Mastaba 1958 - 2018', a major exhibition that coincides with the artists' first outdoor sculpture in the UK, 'The Mastaba' (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake). Towering at 20 metres high, it is the largest of Christo's realised mastaba works to date, and will comprise 7,506 painted oil barrels in a floating mosaic of red, white, blue and mauve. Through sculptures, drawings, collages, photographs and scale models the publication traces the sixty-year trajectory of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's use of barrels in their work, from their earliest public projects in Cologne Harbour and the Rue Visconti to their eventual use in the creation of monumental mastabas such as The Mastaba (Project for United Arab Emirates). Conceived by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1977, this yet-to-be-realised project represents a singular and steadfast vision of the artists' most ambitious work to date. Made from 410,000 stacked barrels and standing 150 metres tall, The Mastaba would be the world's largest sculpture, rising higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Exhibition: Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (19.06.-09.09.2018).