The other day I went to see the floating sculpture The London Mastaba, created by husband and wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude and which is situated temporarily on London’s Serpentine Lake. It was a gloriously sunny day and this was my first sighting of it:
As I approached I noticed the lake’s surface had a red glow. The woman in the Chanel scarf was feeding the ducks and swans, and it was all very leisurely but with a surreal quality: Red water has biblical associations for me too, connoting rivers of blood and the crossing of Red Sea:
Some close ups of the water; these abstracts remind me a bit of Op Art, a geometric art movement popular in the 60s:
It got me thinking back to other recent photographs I’d taken of colourful reflections on water with geometric, linear and abstract qualities and brought to mind this image taken in San Francisco in June 2017. The temporary mural is reflected at the future site of the San Francisco Museum of Mexican Art. I believe the museum is due to open in 2019:
And the picture below – a partial view of the Venice Prison facade, with its graffiti advocating setting jails on fire and the Lib of Libertà – freedom – just seen, reflected in the canal:
Walking back from the Mastaba I came across the Serpentine Sackler Gallery and its adjoining restaurant, designed by the late Zaha Hadid. The curved architectural forms had an abstract, sculptural quality and I liked the combination with the reflected clouds which lent it an air of surrealism:
See the Serpentine gallery website for official information about The London Mastaba.