Christo going egypt style

You know how you sometimes just start day-dream about huge things, and you visualise how this all will happen? Well, most of the time it doesn’t quite happen.. But this is not really counting for the Bulgarian artist Christo. Indeed, he is back, and again he has big plans! I latterly mean HUGE! When visiting an exhibition stand during Art Abu Dhabi, someone already provided me with a bit of inside information, but finally the scoop is out! The legendary Christo decided to build the biggest Pyramid evahhh! And of course he is going to do this in the UAE. Compared to this master plan, the pyramids of Egypt will be so yesterday… Christo rather not refers to it as a Pyramid, but an Mastaba, which means “eternal house”. Did I already mention that the sculpture will be build out of 410,000 painted petrol drums? Stacked barrels painted in colours inspired by the yellow and red sands will recreate the visual effect of an Islamic mosaic. Christo said: “When the sun rises, the vertical wall will become almost full of gold.” Estimated construction costs of $340m (£212m) would make this not only the craziest, but also the world’s most expensive sculpture. The 150-metre-high, flat-topped pyramid would be taller than St Paul’s Cathedral or St Peter’s Basilica and would overshadow the Great Pyramid of Giza!

Like most of his projects, Christo has been dreaming about this idea for many years in his mind. Now, after almost 30 years of preparation the location got approved, the finances are arranged, and the collaboration with Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahyan is settled. What proves all of this? Perhaps, that there is hope for all the dreamers amongst us..

Christo has created environmental art installations all over the world, from draping New York’s Central Park for “The Gates,” to swathing islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay with pink cloth.

check out more of his work on http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/