There is nothing new about art being vandalised or destroyed – the ancient world is littered with the corpses of statues raised in the name of any number of potentates and pulled down by a successor. Art and politics have always marched hand in hand and particularly when it involves something meant to outlast the ages in marble, stone or bronze. However, art and political sculpture has raised its head in recent years with any number of public works of former colonial heroes coated in paint, decapitated or in the case of certain middle eastern dictators, pulled down in a very public display of revenge but, as understandable as it may be want to cast off the past, what we are seeing across Australia is something quite different. For instance, vandals destroyed 30,000 to 40,000-year-old Nullarbor Plain cave art that is sacred to the Mirning people of the Great Australian Bight, and a massive four-metre sculpture, which is one of five Giants of Mandurah, was almost completely destroyed in a blaze while bronze Prime ministers’ heads were severed from their bases and stolen from a public walkway only a few months ago. In NWS the canoe sculpture by Awabakal woman Shellie Smith on the Fernleigh Track near Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia was stolen recently. Who knows where it ended up.

In Adelaide Old Man Rakali installed at Hindmarsh in the CBD by Adelaide artist Clancy Warner was cut from its base by someone wielding an angle grinder and further still, work by Nic Ullmann was stolen only a week ago within shouting distance of the city at Norwood and St Peters. It is doubtful if any of these cases involved political comment unless it was individuals taking out their frustrations on local councils who paid for these works out of rates or government funds. The Norwood, St Peters and Payneham Council now have a bill $170,000 to come out of ratepayer’s pockets for replacements – money that could be better spent elsewhere.

The mentality needed to equate destruction and theft of public art with any kind of reasoning or intelligence beggars belief. It is doubtful any of these vandals or thieves ever visit an art gallery or have any understanding of art. The two of more hefty individuals who stole Old Man Rakali would have staggered under its 70kg weight and while it is possible they saw it as a useful garden ornament, the more likely story is that they sold it on to a scrap metal dealer to further themselves in beer and smokes. Given the number of raids on bottle shops and petrol outlets of late where the haul was a couple of packets of cigarettes, these thefts are not to counter the rising cost of living or for feeding a family.

Once upon a time art and artists were revered. The 20^th century saw much of that respect eroded as artists moved further and further away from public perceptions of what constituted art and in the case of Warhol, anti-art pretending to be fine art much to the chagrin of most critics forced to accept the premise. That the general public lacked the art education to discuss the ever-changing directions which modern and post-modern art took didn’t mean that art had to be destroyed in the name of the everyman. Of course, there were still a lot of art thefts of paintings in the 20^th century and statistics tell us that barely 10 % were recovered but destroying paintings is a lot less common than vandalising or stealing public sculpture.

So, what is different now in the 21^st that people feel free to steal and destroy art? The state of the economy and the cost of living are hardly going be to remedied through the theft of a sculpture any more that coating poor old Captain Cook in red paint is going to reverse history. So, what is driving this? Fame? Notoriety? Given the limited attention spans of current media consumers to say nothing of the five minute news cycle, it would seem to be a futile task trying to outdo the influencers by knocking off a sculpture and hoping to make the news for your two minutes [ or less].

The perpetrators of art theft in Adelaide remain anonymous so the desire to call attention to themselves or have their name associated with the artwork becomes pointless so it must be something else. If Rakali ended up in some suburban backyard out of sight, then it must be a desire to own art that drives the theft in the first place or to provide a BBQ talking point to friends, relatives and neighbours. Given the power of a mobile phone that scenario is going to come undone sooner rather than later.

I think it comes down to the society we have created where the expectation of something for nothing pervades every aspect of the retail market and where every teenager expects a high paying job regardless of work ethic or experience – in some cases no doubt a line of thought inherited from their parents. But art theft from public places makes no sense at all unless its rationale derives from Revenge – the most common of the storylines on Netflix – against a society where art is seen not as prestige but a product beyond the rational appreciation of the person in the street who feels as though their intelligence is being insulted.

When one of my steel sculptures was stolen from the workshop back in the 80s it made the papers. It was worth nothing to anyone and given its propensity to rust I doubt it lasted a winter in someone’s back garden. Its only value was as a creative marker in my life. Luckily, I still have the drawings.