Photo: Twitter/@kota_jogja
People in Yogyakarta were shocked and puzzled yesterday when a caucasian woman started throwing red paint all over the city’s iconic Tugu Pal Putih statue yesterday around noon.
“They thought she wanted to take a photo with the statue. But suddenly she was splashing it with paint. Eventually she was stopped by citizens,” said Yogyakarta Police R Suardi, as quoted by Tribunnews.
Police quickly secured the woman, who was splattered with red paint as well, and brought her to the police station for questioning.
The bule woman did not have any official form of identification on her but she did have a business card that said her name was Yit Kampak and that she was from the Czech Republic.
A search for Yit Kampak on Google leads to http://yitka-kampak-art.netstranky.cz/, a website featuring pictures of a woman who looks very much like the one who vandalized the Tugu Pal Putih statue.
The website says Yit Kampak is an artist from the Czech Republic who has taken up residence in Indonesia for over a decade. It also has a CV that states Kampak has studied art at several Indonesian universities, including Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta.
Police said the woman who vandalized the statue was reluctant to talk and was crying as if she was undergoing severe stress. Eventually she told authorities she was looking for a fellow artist named Ugo Untoro and that throwing paint on the statue was somehow connected to finding him.
Police have not arrested the woman as Ugo eventually stepped forward to take responsibility for her, promising police she would not flee the city. However, it is likely she will be charged with public vandalism.
Firemen were sent to wash the paint off the Tugu Pal Putih statue who got most of it off, but police said that the paint had seeped into the statues pores, meaning it will require more extensive cleaning.
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