Mar
25, 11:36 AM EST

Iceberg Off Western Greenland Painted
Red

By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer
 
/>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP)—Off the coast of western Greenland, in an area
saturated by slow-moving ice floes and white icebergs, the blood red one stands
out by design.

“We all have a need to decorate Mother Nature because
it belongs to all us,” Chilean-born Danish artist Marco Evaristti said Thursday.
“This is my iceberg; it belongs to me.”

On Wednesday, he used 3,000
liters (780 gallons) of paint diluted with sea water, three fire hoses, two
icebreakers and a 20-man crew to spray the chunk of ice floating in the
water.

The sea water was colored with the same dye used to highlight
meat, Evaristti told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from
Ilullissat, Greenland.

Evaristti and his crew sailed from the small
town and zigzagged among icebergs for about 30 minutes before they found the
perfect frozen canvas.
 
Facing temperatures of minus 23 degrees C
(minus 9 degrees F), it took about two hours for the 40-year-old artist to paint
the exposed tip of the iceberg, which was about 900 square meters (1,080 square
yards) in size.

Ilullissat, which means icebergs in Greenlandic, is a
tourist destination because of its scenery.

The town of 4,000
residents sits at the mouth of the 40-kilometer-long (25 mile-long) and nearly
8-kilometer wide (5 mile-wide) Kangia fjord which is filled with hundreds of
icebergs of different sizes spawned by glacial ice sheets.

The
painted iceberg floats in an area where the fjord is up to 300 meters (990 feet)
deep.

There was no immediate reaction from Greenland authorities
about the art work. Greenlanders are generally very protective about their
unspoiled environment.

Evaristti drew widespread attention - and
disdain - when he displayed 10 working blenders filled with goldfish in a Danish
gallery in 2000.

He invited guests to turn the devices on and someone
did, grinding up a pair of goldfish.

The gallery director was tried
on charges of animal cruelty, but acquitted.

—-

On the
Net:

http://www.evaristti.com


Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

/>