Supreme shows chair way for graffiti artists damaging artistic heritage

The sculpture “Lugar de Encuentros II” by Eduardo Chilida, located on the Plaza del Rey in Madrid, is a regular victim of graphite. But this time the case went to the Supreme Court and the judges warned the graffiti artists: if they cause significant damage to the artistic heritage, it is a crime punishable by imprisonment. In this case, the author of the graffiti of this statue near the doors of the Ministry of Culture was sentenced to 5 months imprisonment and the obligation to pay more than 1300 Euros, which cost him to repair the damage.

The graffiti took place on Friday, March 2017, at 1 p.m. The convict was “hunted” by the municipal police after he used a white marker to make two graffiti on the sculpture, which in some cases reached 24 centimeters in height and 71 in length. This more than six-ton ​​steel statue was made by sculptor San Sebastian Eduardo Chilida in 1971 and bought by Banco Urquijo for the Plaza del Rey to pass into the hands of the state in the 1980s, among seven fireplaces. And the Ministry of Culture.

Many of these inscriptions in the artistic heritage could not reach the courts due to the difficulty of identifying the author, but this time the municipal police were able to find him and take him to court. Meanwhile, work to clean and restore Childa’s sculpture at the Madrid City Hall’s desk cost 1,376 euros: a job that, according to Justice, involved a “specialized group of restorers” who used fog water balloons to absorb ballots. Ink, cleaning entire sculptures and more specific operations to eliminate “shadows” and leave the artwork as it was.

In the first instance, the Madrid Criminal Court sentenced him to 5 months in prison, but the provincial court decided to acquit him because he did not see any crime against the historical-artistic heritage. According to the judges who acquitted him, there was no evidence that the graffiti had caused a serious deterioration in the artwork “beyond the statue delay”. The prosecution took the case to the Supreme Court because it realized that the latest reform of the Criminal Code on this crime allowed the graffiti author to be punished.

The argument is that the Supreme Court buys a sentence that re-imposes a five-month prison sentence, in addition to the City Council’s obligation to pay 1,376 euros, which cost compensation. The statue of Childa, explained by the magistrates of the Criminal Court, “suffered damage that went beyond the simple delay of easy repair, because it caused the performance of specialized work, which consisted of simple washing and the amount of which reached 1376.40 euros.”

Therefore, it was not graphite that could be cleaned with a little water. “The cleaning work was not limited to cleaning the statue with water, but also required its restoration by a group of specialized restorers,” the Supreme Court said. Therefore, this sentence implies that damaging this caliber of works of art is a crime, although it is not always necessary to punish him with imprisonment: as the Supreme Court recalls, this crime is punishable by 6 months to three years. In prison.Those who damage works of art in this way, but also with fines, which, in the opinion of the judges, allow the assessment of the criminal response.

In this case, the perpetrator of this graffiti is strongly threatened with five months in prison because the judges initially took into account the mitigating factor of excessive delay. The trial began in 2017 and lasted more than two years from the completion of the investigation to the end of 2020 before the start of the trial.