Australian Teen Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A teenager from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after reportedly vandalizing a large art piece of a mythical creature by applying googly eyes to it.
The 19-year-old, aged 19, participated remotely at the local court in South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of property damage.
Officials commented at the time of the September incident, the local council said that surveillance video captured a individual placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which locals have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.
The accused did not enter a plea and informed the judge she was unwell, according to news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in December.
The following day the alleged incident, the local mayor stated that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be removed without harming the sculpture.
“This intentional vandalism to a cherished public artwork is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our community who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
The mayor added the council would pursue the “substantial” restoration expenses from those responsible for the damage.
When the artwork was initially suggested, it received varied responses from the local community due to its price tag and appearance.
Priced at 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an ancient marsupial ant-eater found in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
