Roll out the barrel: ‘Tomb’ sculpture to be floated in Serpentine

A temporary 65ft-high island of barrels could be built on the Serpentine in Hyde Park as part of an exhibition dedicated to the eccentric artist Christo.

The Mastaba, named after a style of ancient Egyptian tomb, would be made of 7,506 barrels, held together by steel scaffolding, on a platform of plastic cubes floating on the lake — and would have 24-hour security.

Bulgarian-born Christo, 82 — pictured with a version of the installation in France last year — worked with his wife Jeanne-Claude until her death in 2009. Their first work together, in 1961, was a set of barrels stacked by docks in Cologne and they went on to wrap Paris’s Pont Neuf bridge and Berlin’s Reichstag in fabric.

The Mastaba would run alongside a Serpentine Galleries exhibition on their careers. Plans submitted to Westminster city council show the work is expected to take 20 weeks to build and install and would stay in the lake until November.

A report for councillors admits it will “obscure” some views of Westminster, but states that this is considered acceptable due to the work’s “temporary nature” and the public benefits. It adds that there would be “no adverse impact” on wildlife and the artist will clean the lake bed. Councillors will consider the plan on Tuesday. Two letters of objection were received.