A sculpture stealthily installed - and quickly torn down - in the heart of Castlemaine has artists, local government and businesses at odds over what is art and what is a safety hazard.
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The 'leaning weatherboard of Castlemaine', as it was dubbed, was erected in the early hours of Monday morning outside the Maxi IGA supermarket on the corner of Hargraves and Mostyn streets.
The four-metre-high tower was made of second-hand weatherboards weighted down by a 1000-litre water tank.
The teetering structure stood over the Castlemaine intersection for two days until Maxi Foods founder Brendan Blake, who owns the supermarket, heeded a Mount Alexander Shire Council order to dismantle it.
Mr Blake and the council both said no permission was sought before the artwork was put in place.
"Its actually a little bit rude," Mr Blake said when asked how he felt about the installation.
"It was leaning to start with and if it fell over, and someone was killed or injured, the liability would've been all on my shoulders."
The businessman paid contractors to break apart the tower on Wednesday afternoon and said: "I'll be happy to have a name to pass the bill to."
A Mount Alexander Shire Council spokeswoman said attempts were made to contact the person responsible before their sculpture was disassembled.
But the identity of the artist - or artists - responsible remains unknown.
YouTube user Jasmine Shirazi, who claims to be an Iranian artist living in Dusseldorf, Germany, took ownership of the artwork in a video montage of the structure's dismantling.
"This was my gift for the township of Castlemaine,” video captions, written in German, read.
“Unfortunately they did not appreciate it.
”I was told that it was an artistic city.”
But the Bendigo Advertiser understands Jasmine Shirazi is a pseudonym and the weatherboard work was the doing of at least two local artists.
Its installation coincided with the opening of the Castlemaine State Festival on Monday, but director Martin Paten said it was not part of the program.
Guerilla artworks were not unusual for the central Victorian arts event, he said, remembering another occasion when audience members leaving a show at the Castlemaine Town Hall bore witness to videos projected onto the building's exterior.
"Sometimes it's refreshing when something just happens," Mr Paten said.
"People have accepted it as part of the personality of this town and, in a way, the community feels it has the right to create work."
While he acknowledged there were processes both artists and landowners needed to follow when building, he also said there was a "a fine line between being over-regulated, paranoid or concerned" and having genuine concerns for public safety.
"It's unfortunate people feel they need to respond dramatically rather than pausing and finding out more about the risk and danger," he said.
"We have such professional artists in the town that we should trust their intelligence and experience and think about that a little bit first before there's this knee-jerk reaction."
He hoped the artist could discuss with the landowner the possibility of returning the artwork to its original position.
Meanwhile, Mr Blake said his business was a support of the arts, having sponsored the nine state festivals. Events for the Castlemaine Fringe, which runs concurrent to the state festival, were also housed inside the Maxi IGA building.
Castlemaine Fringe spokeswoman Meg NightJar also denied knowledge of the tower’s origins, but said another piece of public art – refrigerator sculpture Fridge Henge – that was part of her event and had sought council approval was twice vandalised since its installation.
In a video recorded after his work’s desecration, artist Ben Laycock said he did not understand the hatred the artwork elicited.
“It’s just the same, small minority of people who… just don’t like art,” he said.
“People just see them (the fridges) and they see red, and they want to destroy them.
It is the third consecutive year the artist has exhibited his fridge sculpture in Castlemaine and said vandals would not deter him.
“We will resurrect it. It’s not over yet.”
While most people responding to news of the tower’s destruction on Facebook page Castlemania appeared to accept the authorities’ justification, others labelled the decision “appalling”.
Some also thought the artist planned on his or her work being razed, hoping to start a conversation about the place and permanence of art.
“I suspect it is all a hoax to get exactly this outcome,” Facebook user Fiona Kelly wrote.
The Mount Alexander Shire Council spokeswoman said the artwork was in storage and awaiting collection.
But that would require the mystery sculptor to disclose their identity.