The artist Christo unveiled a colorful mastaba in London

The London Mastaba is the first major art project that Christo has presented in Britain. It is made up of exactly 7,506 metal barrels in blue, dark red, and light purple. The entire sculpture floating on the Serpentine Lake is shaped like a truncated pyramid and is 20 meters high, 30 meters wide, and 40 meters long.

Christo found inspiration for the piece in ancient Egyptian mastabas, above-ground brick structures that served as tombs. He has been working on the mastaba project since the 1970s. "All interpretations are allowed, all provoke thought. And thinking makes us human," said the 83-year-old artist at the ceremonial unveiling.

The London Mastaba is intended to be just a precursor to a much larger work. Together with his late wife Jeanne-Claude, who passed away in 2009, Christo designed a mastaba for the desert in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, which is to be composed of 410,000 colorful barrels, rising to a height of 150 meters and extending 300 meters in length.

In London, Christo's creation will be on view until September 23. "The work belongs to everyone until it disappears again. No tickets, no reservations, no owner," states a statement issued on the occasion of the ceremonial unveiling. The value of the work is estimated at three million pounds (over 88 million CZK).

The American artist of Bulgarian origin has some experience with floating objects. His project of floating colored pontoons that connected towns on the northern Italian Lake Iseo for two weeks drew significant attention two years ago. A total of 1.3 million people walked on them.

Artist Christo became famous in the artistic duo with his wife Jeanne-Claude, but after her death in 2009, he did not create any major works for a long time. Throughout his career, he became known primarily for "wrapping" projects: covering skyscrapers with fabric, part of the Australian coast, the Roman walls, living trees, the Paris bridge Pont Neuf (1985), and the Berlin Reichstag (1995).

Christo's latest project is accompanied by an exhibition of works he created with his wife over the last 60 years at the nearby Serpentine Gallery.