Mark Zuckerberg ‘revives Roman tradition’ with sculpture of wife
Arsham, who has exhibited his work globally, including in Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Venice, uses materials including volcanic ash, crystal and bronze in his sculpture projects.
Zuckerberg has long been fascinated with classical history, which dates back to his time at Phillips Exeter Academy, the elite American boarding school, where he studied Latin.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s.Credit: AP
During Roman times, sculptures were made of wives in line with the ancient ideal of “pietas”, which symbolises loyalty and devotion to the family and state.
In 2018, Zuckerberg revealed in an interview he was particularly fascinated by the emperor Augustus, the first leader of ancient Rome. The couple travelled to the Eternal City for their honeymoon.
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“My wife was making fun of me, saying she thought there were three people on the honeymoon: me, her, and Augustus,” Zuckerberg told the New Yorker. “All the photos were different sculptures of Augustus.”
He and Ms Chan gave their three children names derived from Roman emperors: Maxima, eight, August, six, and Aurelia, one.
Zuckerberg and Chan met at a party in 2003 while studying at Harvard University. They were married in 2012 at a surprise ceremony at their home in Palo Alto, California, with the guests told they were attending a party to celebrate Chan’s graduation from medical school.
Zuckerberg is not the first billionaire tech mogul to have appeared to create a vast sculpture of his partner.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was previously rumoured to have had the enormous sculpture on the prow of his superyacht made to resemble his fiancé, Lauren Sanchez.
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Sanchez later said while she was “flattered” by the comparisons, the figure was based on the Norse goddess Freyja.
Other current Zuckerberg projects include building a $100 million Hawaiian ranch with a sprawling underground bunker and a network of treehouses.
The Meta billionaire’s Koolau Ranch estate is expected to boast more than a dozen buildings on a 1400-acre (566 hectares) plot on Kauai island.
Along with 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms, the ranch will also feature 11 treehouses in a nearby woodland area, which will be joined by rope bridges, meaning guests will not have to descend to move between them, according to planning documents seen by Wired.
The compound will include two mansions spanning 57,000 square feet (5295 square metres) complete with lifts, offices, conference rooms and an industrial-sized kitchen.
They will be joined by an underground tunnel, which connects to a 5000 sq ft bunker with a living space, mechanical room and escape hatch that can be accessed via a ladder. It will also reportedly feature an apparent “blast-resistant” concrete and steel door.
Telegraph, London
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