Greenpeace hangs Kapoor artwork from North Sea gas platform

Greenpeace activists have scaled a gas platform, stretched a 96 sq metre canvas across its side and stained it crimson, in a protest designed with Anish Kapoor.

- Damien Gayle

The work, in the North Sea, is believed to be the first piece of fine art exhibited from a working gas extraction platform.

"I call it Butchered," the British sculptor said. "I'm referring to the butchering of our environment. It is, at the simplest level, blood on a canvas. A reference to the destruction - the bleeding - of our globe, of our state of being."

Early on Wednesday, Greenpeace activists, who had waited for favourable weather conditions, sailed onboard the Arctic Sunrise to Shell's Skiff platform, about 50 miles off the coast of Norfolk.

Seven experienced climbers scaled the platform, hoisted a 12-metre by 8-metre truss onto its side and stretched the vast canvas across it. They then used a high-pressure hose to spray a deep-red stain on it.