Florida man crashes into 13-foot Hunt Slonem sculpture
A 49-year-old man from Florida had confessed to driving his car into a large blue sculpture of a rabbit called Thunderbunny, made by the American artist Hunt Slonem. The artwork is valued at $300,000 and lived at Justin Flippen Park in Wilton Manors, just north of Fort Lauderdale in the Sunshine State.
The man, Derek Alan Modrok, also admitted to having damaged another piece of sculpture artwork, a popsicle piece made by Craig Berube-Gray, which stood at Rachel Richardson Park. The authorities soon arrested Modrok after they found CCTV of him performing the act.
Hunt Slonem found out about the act of vandalism when NBC Miami contacted him for comment. He recently spoke to ARTnews about the incident and noted that this is not the first time he has lost one of his works.
“9/11 was worse; I lost an 80-foot mural,” he said. “I was just shocked. It’s just such a strange thing, the fact that it’s happened before and the fact that it happened again.”
The artist is now looking at the work to see if it can be repaired. Modrok said that he targeted the statue because the park it is in was named after a former mayor who released many birds.
“This is really bizarre because I’m a bird freak,” Slonem added. “I have a lot of pet birds, up to a hundred, and this guy didn’t like the mayor because of all the birds?”
