Australian Teen Charged for Supposedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Blue Blob’ Artwork
A young person from Australia has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a large art piece of a mythical creature by applying googly eyes to it.
The 19-year-old, 19 years old, participated remotely at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of damaging property.
Officials commented at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities explained that surveillance video captured a individual putting artificial eyes on the sculpture, which locals have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.
The accused did not enter a plea and told the court she was ill, according to news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.
A day after the reported event, the city leader said that repairs to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be detached without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a valued public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” City of Mount Gambier mayor remarked in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those people of our community who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
The mayor added the council would pursue the “significant” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.
When the sculpture was initially suggested, it received varied responses from the local community due to its price tag and design.
Costing A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an ancient anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
