Bulgaria-Born Christo to Create World's Biggest Sculpture

Bulgaria-born artist Christo plans to embark on a monumental project, designed to outshine Egypt's Pyramids.

The USD 325 M Mastaba sculpture, which will be built in the desert 161 kilometres away from Abu Dhabi, will build the world's biggest sculpture, according to its creator.

It will take 400,000 multi-colored oil barrels, 30 months and hundreds of people to build the 150 metre flat-topped pyramid, which will be marginally taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

"When the sun rises, the vertical wall will become almost full of gold," Christo said of the artwork, as cited by Australia's Daily Telegraph.

Christo denies that choosing oil barrels to build the sculpture had anything to do with the region's chief source of wealth.

A German company has been commissioned to supply the coloured barrels.

Christo Yavashev was born in 1935 in Gabrovo, of a Bulgarian industrialist family. The artist was declared a honorary citizen of the town in 1997, but he failed to visit it and collect the award.

Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude, who was French, are known for their large-scale public art pieces. They surrounded 11 islands in Miami with pink woven fabric in 1982, wrapped silver fabric around the German Reichstag in 1995 and opened 3,100 umbrellas in Japan and California in 1991.

The couple's 2005 project in New York, "The Gates," placed panels of free-flowing orange fabric suspended from gateway frames along 23 miles of the Central Park's walkways. The two-week exhibition drew 4 million visitors and generated USD 254 M from hotel stays, restaurants and other cultural attractions, according to the city.

Jeanne-Claude died in November 2009 at 74.