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 litres 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 coloured with the same red 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 -23 Celsius, it took about two hours for the 40-year-old artist to paint the exposed tip of the iceberg, which was about 900 square metres in size.
Ilullissat, which means iceberg in Greenlandic, is a tourist destination because of its scenery.
The town of 4,000 residents sits at the mouth of the 40-kilometre-long and almost eight-kilometre 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 metres deep.
There was no immediate reaction from Greenland authorities about the art work. Greenlanders are generally very protective of 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.
...and how the hell am I gonna hang it on the wall?..
