Christo Javacheff (Gabrovo, Bulgaria, 1935 - New York, 2020) The Mastaba of Abu Dhabi'. Mixed media, drawing, collage, pencil, photography and oil on cardboard under plexiglass frame by the artist. Signed in pencil and dated 1979. 80 x 59,5 cm. Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, better known by his first name Christo, was a plastic artist famous for his large-scale artistic projects and international repercussion. After his name, in biographies, headlines of cultural magazines and newspapers, a verb appears conjugated: 'to wrap'; this is the term that summarizes his extensive, fruitful, complex and, at times, polemic career. To put this verb into practice, it is essential to consider another name: Jeanne-Claude; the artistic and vital companion of the Bulgarian creator. The three of them, Christo, Jeanne-Claude and 'wrap', amazingly converged in an original artistic practice characterized by its monumentality, by a great personality and by leaving no one indifferent. With it, they managed to transcend 'the traditional limits of painting, sculpture and architecture', as we read on their official website 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude'. Among their main works, we highlight 'Wrapped Coast' (1968-1969), where they wrapped 2. 4 km of Australian coastline near Sydney; 'The Pont Neuf Wrapped' (1975-1985), where they covered the oldest bridge in Paris with fabric; 'The Umbrellas' (1984-1991), the installation of blue and yellow umbrellas in valleys in Ibaraki (Japan) and California, respectively; 'Wrapped Reichstag' (1971-1995), the cladding of the German parliament; and 'L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped' (1961-2021), for the moment, the only project of the couple completed by their team, after the death of both (Jeanne-Claude in 2009 and Christo in 2020). Our piece, completed in 1979, is part of 'The Mastaba, Project for United Arab Emirates', the project to erect the Mastaba of Abu Dhabi. It is a work of special interest and of the utmost topicality for several reasons. Firstly, this project, which the artist couple undertook in 1977 without completing it during their lifetime, is officially their last project and the only one that is still being carried out by their team, led by Christo's nephew, Vladimir Yavachev. Secondly, it was precisely in 1979, the year of our work, when they visited the United Arab Emirates for the first time and when they decided on the colours and the placement of the steel barrels. Finally, 'La Mastaba' will be the only permanent large-scale public artwork. As Christo and Jeanne-Claude state on their website, the Abu Dhabi Mastaba 'will be the largest contemporary sculpture (in volume) in the world, made with 410,000 multicolored barrels to form a colorful mosaic, echoing Islamic architecture'. For more information, complemented by evocative photographs that take us through the entire process, we highly recommend consulting the artists' official website https://christojeanneclaude.net/artworks/the-mastaba/