Red iceberg causes a stir in Greenland

updated 6:52 p.m. ET March 26, 2004

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - An artist with 780 gallons of red paint, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew at his disposal went to Greenland in search of a blank canvas large enough to accommodate his creative impulse.

The result is a blood-red iceberg now sitting off the country’s western coast.

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

Just how Greenlanders view his masterpiece isn’t clear yet. There was no immediate reaction from authorities, who are generally very protective of their unspoiled environment.

Evaristti and his crew sailed in two ice breakers from the small town of Ilullissat, Greenland, on Wednesday, and zigzagged among icebergs for about 30 minutes before they found the perfect frozen canvas.

Working in minus 9 degree weather, it took about two hours for the 40-year-old artist to paint the exposed tip of the iceberg, a volume of nearly 10,000 square feet.

The team sprayed the iceberg with the same dye used to tint meat, diluted with sea water, Evaristti told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Ilullissat, which means “Icebergs” in Greenlandic.

The town of 4,000, a tourist destination because of its scenery, sits at the mouth of the Kangia fjord, which is 25 miles long and five miles wide.

The fjord is filled with hundreds of icebergs— previously all of them white.

Evaristti, who was born in Chile, 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.

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