Young Australian Faces Charges for Allegedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after allegedly vandalizing a large art piece of a legendary being by applying googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, participated via phone at the local court in the state of South Australia on that day, charged with a single charge of damaging property.
In a statement at the moment of the recent event, the local council explained that surveillance video showed a individual placing artificial eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.
The accused made no plea and informed the court she was unwell, as reported by media sources, with the judge recommending her to secure a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.
A day after the reported event, the local mayor said that restoration to the much-loved public artwork would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be removed without damaging the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a valued community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
She said the local government would seek the “significant” restoration expenses from those accountable for the vandalism.
At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.
Priced at 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a legendary giant animal, with the creators influenced by an prehistoric marsupial ant-eater discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.