Christo & Jeanne-Claude: Barrels & The Mastaba. 1958-2018
Serpentine Galleries presents latest large scale work by Christo & accompanying exhibition of Barrel work by Christo & Jeanne-Claude.
Why this exhibition is so important to me.
The 2 artists Jeanne-Claude & Christo are a main catalyst in my decision to become an artist. As a teen ager in secondary school I was asked to do a presentation to my class based on something that interested me. Having recently fallen in love with a Jeanne-Claude & Christo book that was shown to me in art class I decided their work was the topic I would present. Using the school library on lunch breaks I printed out A4 images of most of their major works up to that point, Wrapped Reichstag, Running Fence, The Umbrellas (Yellow & Blue), Wrapped Coast, Valley Curtain, Surrounded Islands, Stacked Oil Barrels & Dock Side Packages, 5600 Cubicmetre Package, Wrapped Monuments, The Pont Neuf Wrapped... you get the point!! I was swept away with this project.
The preparation & effort I put into that presentation has stuck with me 15 years on & is still what I believe to be one of my most confident presentations. Writing some notes about the art work dates, names & stats on the back of each print out I was able to hold up the image for my classmates to look at while having clear information on the reverse to talk about in order to WOW the class.
As my interest in art developed through GCSE into A-Level I became interested in space & volume among other things. At one point I even did my own "wrapping" in A-Level art class in a store room, where I covered stacked tables & chairs with any fabric the art department could spare. Draping dark fabric over the volume of furniture that was arranged in the centred of a semi cleared space, I neatly tucking the edges to present a covered mass. Im certain the images are on a floppy disk or CD somewhere. Always having their work in the back of my mind as I studied for degree, I focused heavily on work that filled space & worked with otherwise unused space. Not really finding my feet on degree i made most on my progress after graduating. Once leaving art school & being away from a creative network I began to work hard, alone, in my bedroom at my parents house by making collages of local architecture that interested me. With a time frame of one year I set about putting together an exhibition of these works in order to sell them to fund moving out. An idea I adopted from the artist couple. Famously Jeanne-Claude & Christo make plans & art works that they sell in order to fund the large scale projects. Around half of the work sold to family & friends.
Having moved out I applied to take part in an exhibition called D.I.Y which took place in an old warehouse in Exeter. For this work, among other things I used a barrel in the space, hindsight tells me I was influenced by the early barrel works of Jeanne-Clause & Christo. However I didn't have anywhere as many barrels as them, in-fact only had one, nor did I have the experience to execute as powerful work as theirs but the ode was there.
The next significant moment in this brief history of my influence by the artist couple was in November 2016 for my 30th Birthday when I went to Berlin. At the top of my list of things to do was to go & stand in front of the Reichstag building so I could grasp the scale of the work that they made there in 1995. This was the closest I had ever been to seeing a site of one of their works.
Then, fast forward to summer 2018, while im entering into the final year of a Masters in Contemporary Art Practice, Barrels & The Mastaba, 1958-2018 opens at the Serpentine Galleries in London & I have to go!!
Review of the Exhibition.
Entering Hyde park from the South at Exhibition Road there was no hint of the large work I had come to see on the Serpentine Lake due to the tree line between the lake and the park road. So firstly I approached the Serpentine gallery for the Christo & Jeanne-Claude Barrels exhibition. Turning the corner into the gallery there are several stacks of barrels both wrapped & unwrapped standing on low platforms. Various combinations of stacked barrels sit in the space & on the walls are collages, drawings & plans for the barrel stacks. A true realisation of seeing the work suddenly hit me. To me is must be the same feeling a parent gets when their child is born or the feeling an architect gets when they first enter the space they have designed. It is that long anticipated experience of something you have waited a long time to see. It is validating that this strange form in a space is everything you thought it would be. Although I had never seen these works before there was a sense of familiarity.
This exhibition tells the story of an idea that began in 1958 of building a Mastaba. It begins with the initial exploration of the use of barrels & wrapping. In a small way with stacks of 1,2 & 3. Leading into the second gallery space larger configurations sit with up to 28 barrels. In this space the wall also has a large image of 'Wall of Oil Barrels - The Iron Curtain', made in Paris in 1961-62. This space now leads us to the beginning of their large scale work using barrels.
Finally the latter rooms of this exhibition show the development of the Mastaba series itself. With models, drawings & plans that describe the journey this idea has been on. Several Mastaba Structures have been planned, a permanent one planned for a desert site near Abu Dhabi not yet realised, '1240 Oil Barrels Mastaba' made in 1968 in the USA & now in 2018 'The London Mastaba' a temporary floating sculpture on the Serpentine Lake.
This exhibition lays out the history of the use of barrels in the work of Jeanne-Claude & Christo carefully & methodically. Parts of the show hinting at the political & cultural significance of the implementation of walls & barrels. Taking into consideration the temporary work 'Wall of Oil Barrels - The Iron Curtain' from 1962 where its construction was made in protest to the construction of the Berlin Wall. Added to that the proposed 'Mastaba' for the United Arab Emirates an oil rich country that has zoomed to wealth since the 1970s largely due to its oil wealth. Oil is measured in units called Barrels adding yet more weight to an already rich context that highlights the use of the objects & the forms in which the objects take. A Mastaba structure is an ancient form of architecture that takes the shape of a rectangular base with sloping sides & a flat top. A common form within the Arabic world.
So does a Mastaba sculpture made of barrels in London stir up a conversation about British relationships with Middle Eastern countries with oil in mind? It makes me think of the Iraq war where some claim oil was one of the main objectives for the conflict. Particularly when you realise the places that Mastaba sculptures have happened or are proposed to happen, UAE, UK & USA. In current US politics there seems to be a presidential prejudice towards some Middle Eastern countries with the pretext of terrorism & extremist views, but not all countries in this region are treated this way by the US government. One such country is the UAE who have links to terrorist attacks in the USA but are embraced by the Government, possibly due to its oil wealth. This may however just be an over reading of the work but all of the stepping stones for these political issues are present.
For me the form & scale speak loudest. Its largeness is impressive when considering the individual elements that comprise its mass. Especially as they seem stacked with no clear sense of being fixed together. It sits low in the landscape on the lake but still clears the tree line to the edge of the space. As it floats on the water but sensibly anchored so it doesn't float away, it maintains the stasis of a building. The space moves around this Mastaba. Rippling water, swaying branches, moving people, wildlife & pedalos animate the space around the work. Christo & Jeanna-Claude's work brings this out in the spaces they inhabits. This raises questions about the environment a work is made for. Sometimes their work highlights the human made elements of our built environments & other times exists in more remote areas that are difficult to access. In this case there is a placed structure that isn't so much about concealing or simplifying an existing form such as in the wrapping works but a placement of something. It is a structure that we can not inhabit or really reach easily but is large enough to draw attention from all around. What is also great about this art, is there are many people who will see the work not knowing who the artists are or their catalogue of projects. Following Jeanne-Claude & Christo's ethos that 'art should be free for everyone', here it really is. Free to see & free for interpretation.
As well as large forms & materials, Jeanne-Claude & Christo are known for the colours of their works. Always bold & Bright. Orange, Yellow, Blue, White, Pink, Silver... This work follows on from previous barrel work, where the barrels have their own colour. In Mastaba there are Red, Pink & Blue. overall giving a Pink/Purple sunset sky colour. Against the green of the trees & grey of a nearby concrete brute, Hyde Park Barracks, this form stands out. It is crisp & reminds us to think about all of the colour we see around us. So far since this sculpture was set to float the UK has had nothing but scorching hot sun, leaving some areas without rain for close to 2 months by now. It makes me think how the Mastaba would look in more familiar grey or white clouded skies. Drawing our attention to the things we are used to & drawing on the differences we see in the light from day to day, month to month & season to season. All of these thoughts prompted by the fuchsia Mastaba floating on the lake.