Anish Kapoor must reconsider – Dirty Corner should be cleaned | Jonathan Jones

Public art often gets scarred by battles over its meaning or right to exist, but the vandals who daubed antisemitic graffiti on his sculpture are idiots who picked the wrong target

Anish Kapoor, it turns out, is not only a brilliant artist but a brave one. Faced with an antisemitic attack on his open-air sculpture Dirty Corner, he has chosen to defiantly leave the ugly, vicious daubings as they are, to let his art bear the scars of contemporary Europe’s darkest impulses: a dirty corner indeed, stained by racism and ignorance.

It is the second time this sensual, suggestive work of art has been vandalised – and of course there’s a very laudable political logic in Kapoor’s decision to let the rancid markings stay. “The vandalised sculpture now looks like a graveyard,” he says, in explanation of his decision to let racism and intolerance “expose itself fully, in full view for all to see”.

Related: Anish Kapoor's 'queen's vagina' vandals and the rise of cultural fascism in France

His art bears the scars of Europe’s darkest impulses: a dirty corner indeed, stained by racism and ignorance

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