Australian Teen Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Blue Blob’ Artwork
A young person from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after reportedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by applying plastic eyes to it.
The 19-year-old, aged 19, participated remotely at the local court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, charged with a single charge of property damage.
In a statement at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities explained that surveillance video captured a individual putting artificial eyes on the artwork, which locals have nicknamed the “Cast in Blue”.
The accused made no plea and informed the court she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in December.
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 detached without harming the art piece.
“This wilful damage to a valued community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” City of Mount Gambier mayor said in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”
She added the local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the vandalism.
At the time the artwork was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.
Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric marsupial ant-eater discovered in local caves that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.
