Students nab Sea Point sculpture

Cape Town – One has suffered a broken foot, the other was pushed over and one disappeared completely.

It would appear that the sculpture series of "The girl who wants to fly like a dragonfly" has had a difficult time on the Sea Point Promenade.

"I don't know whether I want to exhibit my work here for the next two years," said the artist Marieke Prinsloo-Rowe, after her work has been the target of vandals on numerous occasions.

The latest incident saw students from the University of Cape Town (UCT) stealing one of Prinsloo's sculptures.

The sculpture, the first in the series, "moved" to the lawns of a UCT men's residence two weeks ago.

"It must have taken quite a few of them to wiggle the sculpture off her pedestal," Prinsloo said.

Big red bow

Prinsloo-Rowe later received an anonymous message that informed her of the sculpture's whereabouts. She then went there in person.

"They took the sculpture without breaking her – which I saw as a sort of compliment. Look, it's one thing when when people break the sculptures, but quite another when they display it on their lawn."

She then donated the sculpture's pedestal to the men's hostel, complete with a big red bow. "If they want to exhibit my art, they have to do it properly."

Maintenance

According to JP Smith, Cape Town's Mayoral Committee member for Safety and Security, the artist alone is responsible for the maintenance of public artworks.

"Prinsloo-Rowe's work is viewed as a donation. The city council have nothing to do with the maintenance of the artworks."

Smith studied closed circuit television footage from areas around the promenade in the hope of identifying the vandals, but it has not delivered any results.