METRO VANCOUVER -- A public art piece worth more than $1 million was badly vandalized earlier this week, prompting the president of the Vancouver Beinnele to call on police to treat it as a serious crime, not a mere act of mischief, should the person who did it be caught.
"It should be treated as a crime," says Barry Mowatt, president and founder of the Vancouver Beinnale, which is responsible for bringing large public art installations from all over the world to Vancouver and, more recently, Richmond.
"This was vicious and intended."
The artwork in question is the Cabeza Vainilla, Cordoba and Chiapas by Mexican artist Javier Marin. The installation features three large stylized human heads in various juxtapositions.
They are located under the Canada Line just north of the Lansdowne station.
The heads are made of tough polyresin, so whomever managed to punch large holes in the heads had to have been fairly determined to do damage.
"It's tragic because we can't figure out why," Mowatt said.
The Marin piece has not drawn nearly the kind of public disapproval as another Biennale piece -- Miss Mao, a large stainless steel bust of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin with a feminized Chairman Mao balanced on top of his head.
Mowatt said the Marin piece is valued at $1.2 million. He is hoping there is surveillance video that may have captured the vandal in the act on tape.
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