VERSAILLES: Vandals have damaged British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor's controversial "Dirty Corner" installation at the Palace of Versailles near Paris on Sunday in the second attack against the artwork in three months.

A series of sentences, some of which were anti-Semitic, were painted on Kapoor's 60 metre steel and rock abstract sculpture, which he has described as "the vagina of the queen coming into power".

It was not clear how the anti-Semitic element could relate to the artwork, but there has been a general increase in such acts over recent years in France, which has the biggest Jewish community in Europe.

French Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin condemned the incident.

"To attack the work of artists is to attack the universal values of culture - that is freedom and human dignity," she said in a statement. "This is an act that simply shows a facist vision of culture."

The piece was also sprayed with paint in June soon after it had been installed in the palace gardens.

Last year vandals attacked another controversial artwork, bringing down Paul McCarthy's giant green inflatable sculpture on the famous Place Vendome in Paris after its resemblance to a sex toy sparked an outcry.