The artist Christo tells The Art Newspaper at Art Dubai that his long awaited project in the desert, The Mastaba, is still on track. For 40 years, Christo has been planning the structure. Comprising 410,000 multi-coloured aluminium barrels, it would be the largest sculpture in the world, and, unlike many of Christo’s projects, permanent.

“My projects are about the real things,” says Christo, “The real wind. The real wet. The real dry. The real things. Not photographs. I don’t know how to use a computer. Not flat surface. Not propaganda. But the real things.”Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, 81, is in the UAE to double down on his efforts to bring his long-awaited*project to fruition and*is brimming with renewed zeal for the structure, which he first conceived for the Abu Dhabi site with his late wife and creative collaborator, Jeanne-Claude.

Christo says*that preparation will take three years, but once done, the colossal structure itself can then be elevated in a matter of weeks, and will stand at 150 meters high, 225 meters deep (at the 60 degree slanted walls) and 300 meters wide at the vertical walls. It will consist of 410,000 multi-coloured aluminium barrels, which will recall Islamic geometric patterns, when viewed from a distance, set in an ascending form reaching a plateau of 126.8 meters wide.


Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the 1980s. Courtesy Wolfgang Volz

In the 1960s, Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned a smaller version of The Mastaba to be sited between Houston and Galveston in the US, with the encouragement of the De Menil Foundation. The pair ultimately abandoned the project due to planning regulations.

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