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Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Fragile public art leads to unexpected costs
Boing Boing: Amelia Vanderhorst, 19, was charged with property damage in Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in South Australia after applying googly eyes to a local sculpture.
6 comments:
Reigh Wilson
said...
I saw this discourse about this art sculpture on tiktok and I thought it was honestly quite ridiculous. One, this piece of public art, is public, and so although I think that we should respect the original creation, putting it in a public space will mean that people may add their own artistic spin to it. especially when it is at a children's park and it looks like a blue blob like animal. I personally thought it was really funny to add giant googly eyes to its face and it made it quite cute. no I also understand why the artist was upset, though having to pay thousands of dollars to replace the blue coating for this googly eyes stunt feels a little ridiculous. It seems like this sculpture was made to add a sense of whimsy into the public eye and I think that googly eyes were just helping to emphasize that essence. In conclusion, let people have fun, and googly eyes are fun.
This feels like a clear example of something being built without the long term implications being considered in the design and construction of this piece. After no longer than 1-2 years of being installed, the piece has already experienced cracking and had more taken off as a result of googly eyes being put on it. If googly eyes can take the paint off of this installation, why was this particular finish chosen and was there no way for it to have been protected? For being ~$89,000 USD, this is incredibly surprising that it does not have the quality to be able to withstand such a light tampering with. Further, the local government reacting so harshly to a statue that was built during a time of increasing demands on their citizens to contribute more to the government is upsetting as if they were going to spend their money on something frivolous (not that installations in general are frivolous and an important part of a society), how could they not protect it to minimize the chance of further costs?
When it comes to public displays of art, I think two things should be considered really deeply. In what ways can the piece be protected to stand for a long period of time and where exactly will it be placed. The sculpture’s paint should have definitely been better protected, because I feel like googly eyes should not have caused "significant repair costs,” and instead, a simple quick clean from any residue left over after removing them. Also, judging by pictures I found, it seems this expensive sculpture was placed in a park just outside of a town center. While it’s a common area it’s not a well secured area with officers watching the area. I feel the area was too risky to place such an expensive sculpture, it’s not surprising that it happened. Take a place like Times Square, it’s heavily populated yet different kinds of displays are placed there all the time and I’ve never really come across a story where it gets vandalized most likely because of the officers all over that area.
What really surprised me about this article is how something as silly as googly eyes turned into such a big deal. I get that the sculpture is an expensive piece of public art, but if a pair of cheap plastic eyes can peel off the paint, that feels like a problem with the design more than anything. Public art is art that exists in the public. People are going to touch it, take photos with it, and sometimes mess with it a little, especially if it looks like a giant blue creature in the middle of a park. Honestly, I thought the googly eyes were pretty funny and kind of added to the vibe. The reaction from the city felt a bit dramatic, especially when the sculpture clearly wasn’t built to hold up in that kind of environment. It just makes me think that if you’re going to spend that much money on public art, it should be sturdy enough to survive real life.
Public art is something that should be respected but I also fear that public art eventually starts to belong to the public therefore things like googly eyes and graffiti are something that will get added to these pieces of art. So if the artist takes offense to this and demands it get returned to its original or if the graffiti is something offensive and needs to be removed the art should be somewhat easy to repair and the artists need to have thought about that. I do see the argument that it was whimsy and harmless and it should not be thousands of dollars to repaint this sculpture. Unfortunately, after watching the video and seeing how it was constructed, repainting the sculpture would require transporting it to a spray booth then re-installing the sculpture in order to maintain the look of the original finish. That raises the question: did the artists want it to get repainted as the paint faded due to age and wear? Does it have to stay this pristine blue? Is this just a design flaw that unfortunately this 19 year old has to pay the price for?
This is really funny to me personally, because why on earth are people so up in arms about this silly little thing? I think that sticking googly eyes on a statue is funny and that while maybe she shouldn’t have done it, stuff like that happens all the time. The real question is, why on earth did this statue cost so much money? Like this blue blobby thing cost $89,000, and it's being greatly damaged by some googly eyes and a little bit of glue? Like, come on, for that amount of money, this thing better be the most durable thing to ever exist, except that taking a bit of glue off of it peeled the paint off. Maybe for the 89,000 dollars they spent on the sculpture, they could have given it a finish that holds up better. Or if they really cared that much, they could have put it in a location harder to access. The whole thing is really weird to me because, truly, it cannot be that deep.
6 comments:
I saw this discourse about this art sculpture on tiktok and I thought it was honestly quite ridiculous. One, this piece of public art, is public, and so although I think that we should respect the original creation, putting it in a public space will mean that people may add their own artistic spin to it. especially when it is at a children's park and it looks like a blue blob like animal. I personally thought it was really funny to add giant googly eyes to its face and it made it quite cute. no I also understand why the artist was upset, though having to pay thousands of dollars to replace the blue coating for this googly eyes stunt feels a little ridiculous. It seems like this sculpture was made to add a sense of whimsy into the public eye and I think that googly eyes were just helping to emphasize that essence. In conclusion, let people have fun, and googly eyes are fun.
This feels like a clear example of something being built without the long term implications being considered in the design and construction of this piece. After no longer than 1-2 years of being installed, the piece has already experienced cracking and had more taken off as a result of googly eyes being put on it. If googly eyes can take the paint off of this installation, why was this particular finish chosen and was there no way for it to have been protected? For being ~$89,000 USD, this is incredibly surprising that it does not have the quality to be able to withstand such a light tampering with. Further, the local government reacting so harshly to a statue that was built during a time of increasing demands on their citizens to contribute more to the government is upsetting as if they were going to spend their money on something frivolous (not that installations in general are frivolous and an important part of a society), how could they not protect it to minimize the chance of further costs?
When it comes to public displays of art, I think two things should be considered really deeply. In what ways can the piece be protected to stand for a long period of time and where exactly will it be placed. The sculpture’s paint should have definitely been better protected, because I feel like googly eyes should not have caused "significant repair costs,” and instead, a simple quick clean from any residue left over after removing them. Also, judging by pictures I found, it seems this expensive sculpture was placed in a park just outside of a town center. While it’s a common area it’s not a well secured area with officers watching the area. I feel the area was too risky to place such an expensive sculpture, it’s not surprising that it happened. Take a place like Times Square, it’s heavily populated yet different kinds of displays are placed there all the time and I’ve never really come across a story where it gets vandalized most likely because of the officers all over that area.
What really surprised me about this article is how something as silly as googly eyes turned into such a big deal. I get that the sculpture is an expensive piece of public art, but if a pair of cheap plastic eyes can peel off the paint, that feels like a problem with the design more than anything. Public art is art that exists in the public. People are going to touch it, take photos with it, and sometimes mess with it a little, especially if it looks like a giant blue creature in the middle of a park. Honestly, I thought the googly eyes were pretty funny and kind of added to the vibe. The reaction from the city felt a bit dramatic, especially when the sculpture clearly wasn’t built to hold up in that kind of environment. It just makes me think that if you’re going to spend that much money on public art, it should be sturdy enough to survive real life.
Public art is something that should be respected but I also fear that public art eventually starts to belong to the public therefore things like googly eyes and graffiti are something that will get added to these pieces of art. So if the artist takes offense to this and demands it get returned to its original or if the graffiti is something offensive and needs to be removed the art should be somewhat easy to repair and the artists need to have thought about that. I do see the argument that it was whimsy and harmless and it should not be thousands of dollars to repaint this sculpture. Unfortunately, after watching the video and seeing how it was constructed, repainting the sculpture would require transporting it to a spray booth then re-installing the sculpture in order to maintain the look of the original finish. That raises the question: did the artists want it to get repainted as the paint faded due to age and wear? Does it have to stay this pristine blue? Is this just a design flaw that unfortunately this 19 year old has to pay the price for?
This is really funny to me personally, because why on earth are people so up in arms about this silly little thing? I think that sticking googly eyes on a statue is funny and that while maybe she shouldn’t have done it, stuff like that happens all the time. The real question is, why on earth did this statue cost so much money? Like this blue blobby thing cost $89,000, and it's being greatly damaged by some googly eyes and a little bit of glue? Like, come on, for that amount of money, this thing better be the most durable thing to ever exist, except that taking a bit of glue off of it peeled the paint off. Maybe for the 89,000 dollars they spent on the sculpture, they could have given it a finish that holds up better. Or if they really cared that much, they could have put it in a location harder to access. The whole thing is really weird to me because, truly, it cannot be that deep.
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