Container Ship in 12-Ft. Bottle
San Pedro, California
Unveiled as a Port of Los Angeles artwork in 2011. Artist Mark Dion had to work hard to make the boat inside the bottle -- an eight-foot-long modern container ship -- generic, to avoid charges of favoritism toward any particular company. He originally wanted to float it in a sea of blue oil, but for practical purposes he settled for a bed of colored aquarium gravel.
The "bottle" is actually several pieces of glass, cleverly disguised, since Dion eventually realized that its outdoor location would require getting inside from time to time for maintenance. Each of the ship's tiny deck-stacked containers is hand-painted.