Established 1961 Lifestyle

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018

This photo shows an image of a ‘thousand-hand Bodhisattva’ created using different varieties of rice in a paddy in Shenyang in China’s northeast Liaoning province. — AFP

Artist Christo launches 7,500 Chart-topping rapper floating barrels in London

he artist Christo on Monday place with anchors. Red with a white unveiled 7,506 coloured barrels candy stripe on the sides, and blue, XXXTentacion shot dead at 20 Tfloating on a lake in central mauve and red on the ends, the barrels London, a puzzling installation designed are a striking contrast with the lakeside to stimulate debate as much as the surroundings. “The colors will transform XXTentacion, the troubled 20-year-old senses. “The London Mastaba” on the with the changes in the light and its rapper whose grim, often suicidal rhymes Serpentine in Hyde Park, a trapezium- reflection on the Serpentine lake will be propelled him to the top of the US chart shaped work weighing 600 tons, was like an abstract painting,” said Christo. X launched with an air of mystery by the just months ago, was shot dead Monday in Bulgarian-born US artist. Twenty ‘What in the world does it mean?’ Florida in a possible robbery, authorities said. meters high, 30 meters wide and 40 The artist has long appreciated the The rapper, whose lyrics were filled with insecu- meters long, some may see the metal low cost and aesthetic appeal of work- rity and his real life marred by violence, was barrels and wonder if there is an envi- ing with barrels. In 1962, having fled gunned down in broad daylight near a motorcy- ronmental message, thinking of barrels communist Bulgaria, he blocked off a cle store in Deerfield Beach north of Miami, the of oil in the heart of one of London’s Paris street with a wall of them, in Broward County sheriff’s department said. The green lungs. Visible from several hun- response to the Berlin Wall. More artist whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy was dred meters away, others will see a recently, he created a wall of 13,000 pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. He prism, giant pixels, or a simple geomet- barrels in Oberhausen in Germany. becomes one of the biggest names in hip-hop to ric creation. Construction on “The London be killed in recent years after a slew of targeted However, the work is open to all Mastaba”, financed by the artist himself, slayings in the 1990s. interpretations and comes with no mes- started on April 3. It will stay in place The rapper, who was born and lived nearby, sage attached, said its 83-year-old cre- until September 23, when it will be tak- was leaving the Riva Motorsports store when ator. “There are no messages: there is en down and recycled. two armed suspects approached him, with at something in it to discover yourself. I The artwork is already drawing least one opening fire, the sheriff’s department cannot direct you. You should develop astonished reactions in Hyde Park. “It’s said. The pair raced off in a dark SUV and are your senses,” he said. Christo is known very modern, but this place is nature wanted by authorities, it said. “Investigators say Investigators surround a vehicle after rapper XXXTentacion was shot in Deerfield Beach, Fla. for his contemporary artworks includ- and historical. I don’t like it here,” said it appears to be a possible robbery,” the sheriff’s querade mask, XXXTentacion rose suddenly to blacklash by critics who said that his alleged ing “The Pont Neuf Wrapped” (1985), Turkish tourist Yasmin Koc Ozcengel, department said in a statement. The celebrity fame more than a year after putting out the song mistreatment of women should be a career-stop- which involved wrapping the oldest 46. Another onlooker, Anna Andronova, news site TMZ, which first reported the shooting, “Look at Me!” on the sharing site SoundCloud. per in an age that the #MeToo movement is bridge in Paris in polyamide fabric, and said: “It’s good because if it was less said that the two suspects snatched a Louis The rapper-his stage-name alludes to the demanding higher standards from men. Spotify “Wrapped Reichstag” (1995), a similar brave in its shape and volume it would Vuitton bag from the rapper’s vehicle. unknown, pornography and the Spanish word for last month singled out XXXTentacion as part of project on the parliament in Berlin. “It’s be less stunning.” Sheila Steffenson, 58, “temptation”-sampled alternative rock and reg- a policy not to promote songs by artists known created an enormous invitation, like a an American living in London, said: “I’m ‘Look at Me!” gaeton in his dark, often muffled style of hip-hop for “harmful or hateful” behavior, but the lead- stairway to the sky,” said the artist, on sitting here pondering what in the Sporting spiked-up dreadlocks and often full of depressive lyricism. Without any tradition- ing streaming service backed down after the banks of the lake popular with world does it mean... if it means any- covering his face with a black-and-white mas- al sort of promotion, his second album, entitled charges that it had overstepped its role. His for- swans, ducks and tourists on pedalos. thing. “I’m just not really sure how I feel “?,” debuted at the top of the Billboard album mer girlfriend, in an interview published earlier Christo’s first major open-air art about it. Maybe it’s a message about chart in March. this month with the Miami New Times, said that installation in Britain is in the shape of a pollution. Who knows?”—AFP XXXTentacion’s success triggered contro- the emerging star subjected her to a summer of mastaba, a type of ancient Egyptian versy due to a past that is violent even by the abuse in 2016 that included physical attacks tomb. The floating platform is held in standards of the rap world. Around the time of every three or four days, along with threats of his latest album’s release, he was being released grisly sexual violence. from house arrest as he awaits trial on charges of Shortly after a pregnancy test came out posi- beating his pregnant ex-girlfriend. But his music tive, the then girlfriend said that the rapper beat found a critical following. Kendrick Lamar, one her for 15 minutes, injuring her so badly that she of the most influential figures in hip-hop, heaped lost vision and vomited. The rapper, who was praise last year on XXXTentacion’s debut album expelled from middle school for hitting a class- “17” in which he found a unique rawness. Kanye mate and whose mother kicked him out of home, West mourned XXXTentacion on Twitter, writ- has also been implicated in other violent inci- ing: “I never told you how much you inspired me dents, including stabbing his manager and when you were here.” “Jocelyn Flores,” the best- brawling with audience members in concert. known track off “17,” described XXXTentacion’s XXXTentacion frequently referenced his real life despair over the suicide of a friend. “Sad!” a in his verse. The song “Revenge” appears to more melodious but equally bleak track off his address his ex-girlfriend as he rapped, “I’ve dug latest album, delves into his anxieties with two graves for us, my dear,” and concluded, “In women as he raps, “Suicide if you ever try to let my grave, I’ll rot.”— AFP In this 2017 arrest photo made available by the go / I’m sad, I know / Yeah, I’m sad, I know.” Bulgarian artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, better known as ‘Christo’, poses for a Miami Dade Dept of Corrections shows Jahseh photograph as he unveils his artwork, ‘The Mastaba’ on the Serpentine lake in Hyde Onfroy, also known as the rapper XXXTentacion, Backlash over abuse Park in London. — AFP under arrest. — AP photos While winning fans, XXXTentacion faced a