The artist responsible for one of Paris’s most controversial sculptures – a collection of black and white striped columns in the Palais Royal – has threatened to destroy it because, he says, the State has let it go to ruin.

In an outburst that has embarrassed the Government, Daniel Buren said that his celebrated work had fallen victim to “state vandalism”.

He said that the 260 columns were crumbling, the lights meant to illuminate them broken and the fountain he had put in the courtyard had run dry.

“Half my work has been ruined. It’s as if it’s been cut in two,” said Buren, 69. “I’m prepared to take it down altogether.” The artist said that he had been pressing the Culture Ministry to repair his sculpture, officially called Les Deux Plateaux, but commonly known as “Buren’s columns”. “Because of the lack of maintenance, the damage is enormous.”

In response, Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, said that the Palais Royal would undergo a €14 million (£10 million) restoration, with up to €3.2 million to be spent on the courtyard and the sculpture. Work on the columns is to begin in 2009 but Buren’s supporters claim that that may be too late.

Le Figaro said that Buren may have scored an own goal by threatening to demolish his work. His critics, who denounce the sculpture as an anathema when it was erected in 1986, could take him at his word in a bid to get rid of “the eyesore”, the newspaper said.

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