A $500,000 sculpture at the Kerikeri Domain has been hit by taggers just two weeks after its official opening. The sculpture, Te Whiringa O Manoko, by world-renowned Kerikeri artist Chris Booth, has five columns of boulders topped with cast bronze seashells. It was paid for by an anonymous $500,000 donation, with theFar North District Council picking up the tab for landscaping. Kerikeri anti-graffiti campaigner Alexander Gramse - who has spoken out in the past about The Warehouse selling a tagger figurine and a high school art project which involved designing tags - was disgusted by the weekend graffiti attack, which he said amounted to desecration. "It's such a shame ... I wonder how often they'll come back, and how much ratepayers' money will be spent cleaning it up," he said. The only solution was to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible, try to identify the taggers, and come down on them as hard as the law allowed. Mr Gramse called on parents to take responsibility if it was their children doing the tagging. John Harrison, who said he represented the Kerikeri Domain Trust, said he would take legal action if the tagging was reported. He tried to confiscate the Northern Advocate's notes and photographs. The Bay of Islands' top cop, Senior Sergeant Peter Robinson, said graffiti was a concern to police because it was a "signature crime" which could indicate other problems around town. He urged anyone with information that could help identify or catch taggers to call the police straight away. A major publicity campaign by the Advocate after a tagging plague two years ago led to a community clean-up of Whangarei's most tagged landmark, an unsightly 1km-long fence at the southern entrance to the city. The fence now sports a community mural and remains graffiti-free. The Chris Booth sculpture was officially opened on June 7.
