“We own this large collection of public art and really want to bring awareness to the community that applying adhesives does harm the art. So as stewards of the collection, we wanted to share that on social media.”

. . .

The “Phoenix Rising” sculpture may even need to be repainted entirely.

Adhesive can definitely damage some materials. The article says the during Christmas, people hang wreathes and Santa hats on the sculptures which the city doesn’t remove. So I think if people doing it weren’t using glue/whatever adhesive to get them to stay on, it wouldn’t be a big deal.