Charlie Riedel, American, born 1961
Untitled, 2010
The oily evidence of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill of April 2010 began to appear on Louisiana’s shores some weeks after the rig’s initial explosion. On June 3rd, Charlie Riedel took a few of the earliest and most iconic photographs of the spill’s effects on wildlife. A pair of pelicans sit like stones on the beach, almost unrecognizable with their thorough coating of oil; their bodies are weighed down to the extent that they are unable to rise. In the six weeks between the start of the spill and Riedel’s photographs, interest in the disaster had waned. The plight of these seabirds made clear the intensity of the damage and brought animal welfare to the forefront of the nation’s attention. Label by Sarah Roberts