Behind The Art: Desprestigio by Pejac
In November 2002 oil tanker “MV Prestige” split in half and sank off the coast of Galicia in northern Spain. Carrying 77,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil the structurally deficient vessel caused the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal.
With “Desprestigio”, wanted to create a dark souvenir to human ignorance and lack of environmental responsibility, while producing his 1st sculptural edition to date. The spill polluted thousands of kilometers of the Spanish, French and Portuguese coastline, strongly affecting the artist’s native region.
Turning the disastrous real life story into a poetic sculpture, Pejac tirelessly hand painted and assembled each of the 30 exact replicas of the wretched tanker. From recreating all the details of the aged and weathered carrier, tenaciously stencilling its name (desprestigio — discredit / disgrace), to using a PET plastic bottle as a common example of a derivative product of crude oil, the artist developed a complex process using different techniques and setting new standards for his editioned works along the way.
📸 Lights, Camera, Action 🎬: Behind the Scenes of “Desprestigio”
