Young Australian Charged for Supposedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from Australia has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a large blue sculpture of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.
The 19-year-old, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of damaging property.
In a statement at the moment of the September incident, the municipal authorities explained that CCTV footage captured a person putting fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and informed the court she was ill, according to news outlets, with the judge advising her to secure a legal representative before her next court date in December.
The following day the alleged incident, the local mayor said that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be expensive as the stickers could not be detached without damaging the art piece.
“This wilful damage to a cherished community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” City of Mount Gambier mayor remarked in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those members of our community who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”
She said the local government would seek the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.
When the artwork was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the area residents due to its cost and design.
Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the creators inspired by an ancient anteater-like marsupial found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
