Greenpeace Installs Anish Kapoor Painting On Offshore Shell Rig

a shell gas drilling platform towers over a zodiac in the north sea. on the side facing the little boat of greenpeace activists hangs a 12m x 8 m white canvas, with a red stain running down the center and right, from an origin point at the top edge, where the activists used a high pressure hose to release 1,000 liters of non-toxic dye to realize anish kapoor's protest artwork idea. via greenpeace
Greenpeace climbers install a major new work by renowned artist Anish Kapoor titled BUTCHERED onto a Shell platform in the North Sea – the world’s first artwork to be installed at an active offshore gas site. After securing a giant 12m x 8m canvas to one side of the structure, the activists hoisted a high-pressure hose on top of the canvas at a height of 16 metres above the sea. They then pumped 1,000 litres of blood-red liquid that gushed into the fabric, creating a vast crimson stain. The work is a stark visualisation of the wound inflicted on both humanity and the Earth by the fossil fuel industry, evocative of our collective grief and pain at what has been lost, but also a cry for reparation.

Greenpeace really do be preloading the whole story in the captions of their press release photos, I guess. The “blood-red liquid” used for Kapoor’s protest piece, Butchered, is made from sea water, beetroot powder, and non-toxic pond dye.

Does the painting belong to Shell now? Did they take it down after the photos? The status of the artwork beyond this media cycle is as unclear as the archival properties of Kapoor’s medium. But it does continue to be hot as hell here.

Activists install giant new artwork by Anish Kapoor onto Shell platform as heatwave rages on [greenpeace]