I got metaphorically spanked a couple of days ago. Folks have been talking about the Fearless Girl statue ever since it was dropped in Manhattan’s Financial District some five weeks ago. I have occasionally added a comment or two to some of the online discussions about the statue.
Recently most of the Fearless Girl discussions have focused on the complaints by Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor who created Charging Bull. He wants Fearless Girl removed, and that boy is taking a metric ton of shit for saying that. Here’s what I said that got me spanked:
The guy has a point.
This happened in maybe three different discussions over the last week or so. In each case I explained briefly why I believe Di Modica has a point (and I’ll explain it again in a bit), and for the most part folks either accepted my comments or ignored them. Which is pretty common for online discussions. But in one discussion my comment sparked this:
Men who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl.
Which — and this doesn’t need to be said, but I’m okay with saying the obvious — is a perfectly valid response. It’s also one I agree with. As far as that goes, it’s one NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio agrees with, since he said it first (although, to be fair, probably one of his public relations people first said it first).
But here’s the thing: you can completely agree with the woman who responded to my comment AND you can still acknowledge that Arturo Di Modica has a point. Those aren’t mutually exclusive or contradictory points of view.
Let me apologize here, because I have to do some history — and for reasons I’ve never understood, some folks actively dislike history. It’s necessary though. So here we go. Back in 1987 there was a global stock market crash. Doesn’t matter why (at least not for this discussion), but stock markets everywhere — everywhere — tanked. Arturo Di Modica, a Sicilian immigrant who became a naturalized citizen of the U.S., responded by creating Charging Bull — a bronze sculpture of a…well, a charging bull. It took him two years to make it. The thing weighs more than 7000 pounds, and cost Di Modica some US$350,000 of his own money. He said he wanted the bull to represent “the strength and power of the American people”. He had it trucked into the Financial District and set it up, completely without permission. It’s maybe the only significant work of guerrilla capitalist art in existence.
People loved it. The assholes who ran the New York Stock Exchange, for some reason, didn’t. They called the police, and pretty soon the statue was removed and impounded. A fuss was raised, the city agreed to temporarily install it, and the public was pleased. It’s been almost thirty years, and Charging Bull is still owned by Di Modica, still on temporary loan to the city, still one of the most recognizable symbols of New York City.
Arturo Di Modica (the one in the beret)
And that brings us to March 7th of this year, the day before International Women’s Day. Fearless Girl appeared, standing in front of Charging Bull. On the surface, it appears to be another work of guerrilla art — but it’s not. Unlike Di Modica’s work, Fearless Girl was commissioned. Commissioned not by an individual, but by an investment fund called State Street Global Advisors, which has assets in excess of US$2.4 trillion. That’s serious money. It was commissioned as part of an advertising campaign developed by McCann, a global advertising corporation. And it was commissioned to be presented on the first anniversary of State Street Global’s “Gender Diversity Index” fund, which has the following NASDAQ ticker symbol: SHE. And finally, along with Fearless Girl is a bronze plaque that reads:
Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.
Note it’s not She makes a difference, it’s SHE makes a difference. It’s not referring to the girl; it’s referring to the NASDAQ symbol. It’s not a work of guerrilla art; it’s an extremely clever advertising scheme. This is what makes it clever: Fearless Girl derives its power almost entirely from Di Modica’s statue. The sculptor, Kristen Visbal, sort of acknowledges this. She’s said this about her statue:
“She’s not angry at the bull — she’s confident, she knows what she’s capable of, and she’s wanting the bull to take note.”
It’s all about the bull. If it were placed anywhere else, Fearless Girl would still be a very fine statue — but without facing Charging Bull the Fearless Girl has nothing to be fearless to. Or about. Whatever. Fearless Girl, without Di Modica’s bull, without the context provided by the bull, becomes Really Confident Girl.
Fearless Girl also changes the meaning of Charging Bull. Instead of being a symbol of “the strength and power of the American people” as Di Modica intended, it’s now seen as an aggressive threat to women and girls — a symbol of patriarchal oppression.
In effect, Fearless Girl has appropriated the strength and power of Charging Bull. Of course Di Modica is outraged by that. A global investment firm has used a global advertising firm to create a faux work of guerrilla art to subvert and change the meaning of his actual work of guerrilla art. That would piss off any artist.
See? It’s not as simple as it seems on the surface. It’s especially complicated for somebody (like me, for example) who appreciates the notion of appropriation in art. I’ve engaged in a wee bit of appropriation my ownself. Appropriation art is, almost by definition, subversive — and subversion is (also almost by definition) usually the province of marginalized populations attempting to undermine the social order maintained by tradition and the establishments of power. In the case of Fearless Girl, however, the subversion is being done by global corporatists as part of a marketing campaign. That makes it hard to cheer them on. There’s some serious irony here.
And yet, there she is, the Fearless Girl. I love the little statue of the girl in the Peter Pan pose. And I resent that she’s a marketing tool. I love that she actually IS inspiring to young women and girls. And I resent that she’s a fraud. I love that she exists. And I resent the reasons she was created.
I love the Fearless Girl and I resent her. She’s an example of how commercialization can take something important and meaningful — something about which everybody should agree — and shit all over it by turning it into a commodity. Fearless Girl is beautiful, but she is selling SHE; that’s why she’s there.
Should Fearless Girl be removed as Di Modica wants? I don’t know. It would be sad if she was. Should Di Modica simply take his Charging Bull and go home? I mean, it’s his statue. He can do what he wants with it. I couldn’t blame him if he did that, since the Fearless Girl has basically hijacked the meaning of his work. But that would be a shame. I’m not a fan of capitalism, but that’s a damned fine work of art.
I don’t know what should be done here. But I know this: Arturo Di Modica has a point. And I know a lot of folks aren’t willing to acknowledge that.
gregfallis.com 
You have some good points.
I must say though, after 30 years in the public consciousness, the iconic charging bull image can never be TOTALLY appropriated and changed, but only partially. It’s original meaning and the world’s perception of it will always remain even as new perceptions get added in to the salad of “the world of ideas in humanity’s billions of minds”.
Also. Yes, some people with a ton of money gained some marketing benefit from the girl statue. However, the kind of positive impact it WOULD have had on women and girls everywhere if it had been made by a genuine guerrilla street artist is diminished very, very little by the reality of the situation, since far, far fewer people know who made the statue and why than there are people who just know that the statue exists, what it looks like, its juxtaposition with the bull, and maybe that “whoever put it there intended to convey some kind of female empowerment ideas”. Only the small minority of people who know that it’s advertising a specific fund and know which fund that is contribute to the marketing value gained. Far more receive only the valuable positive message. While far, far, far more people who know of the bull but haven’t even heard of the girl still receive the bull’s original message and that’s fine and intact too.
So leaving the girl there is easily the correct move. It’s also a great work of art, regardless of who commissioned it. And the world needs more great works of art, not less, and people shouldn’t be excluded from making that happen just because A) they have trillions of dollars or B) they benefit too in addition to making us all benefit from having more good art.
I also have to say, someone who can blow $350,000 and not be financially ruined by it, or even BE ruined by it, doesn’t look much like a stereotype of “guerrilla street artist” so much as “another rich guy”. To a homeless beggar with 87 cents to his name, or a member of the working poor holding down 1 to 3 jobs for crappy low hourly rates, the guy with $350,000 and the guy with $2.4 trillion are both just rich dudes to be jealous of. Oh and one is richer than the other but that’s a detail. Seriously.
So anyway leave the girl there even though the original artist has a point. There are far more and better points in favor of leaving it there than in favor of taking it away for his sake (or anyone else’s sake).
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It may very well be that Di Modica says the bull stands for the ‘strength and power of the American people,’ but the people have changed its meaning. Because it’s placed on Wall Street it now stands for ‘roaring capitalism’. Nothing Di Modica can do about that. What does he want to do? Say to us all ‘Shut up! It means something else!’? He can’t force us to let it symbolize how he originally intended it.
And now the Fearless Girl statue stands for female empowerment defying roaring capitalism. So what…? People like that. A few male chauvinists don’t. To them I say, welcome to the 21st Century.
And don’t worry, Di Blasio will not allow the corporate sign to stay. Problem solved.
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Maybe just flip the bull around 180?
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I should also mention, I think the relation of the girl to the bull, and what it does or doesn’t change about the meaning of the bull, is very open to interpretation.
To some people it will surely mean “He is now just a dangerous animal and the girl is defying that aspect of him and showing her bravery”. BUT. To other people (including myself), since the bull has been STRONGLY established to NOT mean “here’s a dangerous animal that might maul people” but to mean “Wall Street and our financial system is mighty and successful”… *I* would interpret the girl to mean “Even though participating in the financial success the bull represents may require the kind of strength needed to deal with a powerful animal, strength some might associate only with adult males, I am going to declare that women and girls can also participate in the financial success of bull markets”.
I mean, clearly that’s what the advertising part of the message is even MEANT to convey. If you were pondering buying some shares of the SHE fund but weren’t sure… Would you be talked into investing in it by a message of “females can avoid getting gored by animals” or “females can succeed in the worlds of business and finance”? Clearly it’s the latter.
So yes, SOME viewers of the bull will now perceive it in a different way not intended by the artist. But others will keep seeing it as the embodiment of a bull stock market still, and the girl being just as symbolic rather than literal, like the bull, saying “us girls are going to participate in your boy’s game of bull financial markets now too, so there!”
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NO! Arturo Does not have a point. He smuggled the bull in and installed it late at night without any city approval. Now he’s complaining that the girl statue isn’t fair because they didn’t go through all the right protocols to have it installed. He’s an asshole who doesn’t like to share his place. I say Too F**cking bad. Men who cheat and get away with it and then they don’t want to share space with a little girl.
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Blah blah blah. It’s always about “sharing space” with you feminist nutters. You buy into the marketing scheme hook, line, and sinker, you reward crony capitalists who sell you their third wave feminism product, and at the end of the day you are forty years old, single, and only tolerated by your cats. The little girl doesn’t represent women, the little girl is a product- her body is objectified and on display to manipulate gullible feminists like yourself into thinking that the Jews running Wallstreet have your interests in mind so that you will fight on their side in the class war. Giving you the right to vote was a mistake.
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It’s hard to take any comment seriously when it’s peppered with bigotry toward Jews and feminists (40-year-old cat lady stereotype? Come on…) Please join us in the year 2017, Chuck.
The world is a rough place and you’re suffering, I get it, but it’s every human’s responsibility to figure out how to deal with their own pain instead of attacking those they feel threatened by. It’s hard seeing others join forces, achieve agency, gain power, and maybe even take a few steps forward when you’re confused and lonely.
If third wave feminism (which deals with issues such as rape, gender violence, reproductive rights and abuse) is a corporate made consumer product, (who is profiting here, btw?) I’d way rather go bankrupt wholesaling it rather than the prejudiced hate you’re spewing. Fucking educate yourself.
Fearless Girl or no Fearless Girl, You should be ashamed for advocating the REMOVAL of women’s human rights when the rest of society has come as far as it has. You might wake up one day in a harsher future and see your own right to vote has been revoked along with the rest of the population with IQs below 100.
P.S. Wallstreet Street isn’t a street. It’s called Wall Street.
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But then the city returned the bull to the spot, so now it is there with city approval. So yes, he still has a point.
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“But then the city returned the bull to the spot, so now it is there with city approval. So yes, he still has a point.”
That is an invalid point because Fearless Girl is there with city approval too.
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It has had nothing to do with protocol. Everything to do with it’s its not about women’s power or rights. Its very much so the opposite. It represents the triumph and strength that SHE has over the American peoples strengths. The Bull was supposed to represent the strength of American peoples over was street, that we were see I get regardless of the crash and its impact, a symbol of perserverence. Fearless girl actually is standing up as a symbol in opposition of that. That SHE is in some since stronger and not challenged by the strength of the American people. Its It’s a slap in the face pretty much a commsioned piece to by wall street to say fuck the strength you represent wall street is not scared and owns you America.
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You don’t seem to understand that a full-grown charging bull would gore and trample a young girl to death immediately yet she stands there in spite of that knowledge. The statue doesn’t suggest that the girl is stronger than the bull, it is suggesting that women everywhere know that they are severely disadvantaged when it comes to gender equality, yet we continue to be true to ourselves in spite of that.
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You are, truly, a simple minded buffoon. Reread what was said here and try to comprehend. Arturo is not upset because the statue was snuck in. He is upset because this piece of commercial trash has appropriated his work. Of course, as one eho has clearly never created something if their own I don’t expect you to undersrand. With out the bull, the girl is meaningless.
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I see you just read the headline and then commented. Try reading the article next time.
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Must not have read the page, good job
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This comment *screams* “I didn’t read the fucking article!”
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Yes, exactly you did not get the point of this article. 🙂 Did you even read this?
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You obviously have not created a piece artwork that took effort, that you put your all into in your life or actively made a play or statement for any cause. He’s upset because they used his artwork to advertise and distorted his message and changed what it represented. It is not about the the space at all. It is about changing another persons vision that they put their heart into. Imagine a symbol of the strength of a people being turned into one of oppression.
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Clearly you need to re-read the article. He isn’t complaining about the Fearless Girl not going through the “right protocols”. His complaint is that the CORPORATE commissioned sculpture uses his artwork as part of their investment commercial. The faux Fearless Girl looses context and meaning without the Bull. The Charging Bull statue is NOT owned by NYC, Wall St, or anyone other than it’s artist. How exactly would the image of Fearless Girl remain anything more than a smugly over confident child were the Bull removed? Such a removal is entirely possible as it is privately owned and it’s originally intended message is now perverted.
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I think an elegant solution is removing fearless from that particular location and perhaps have her facing a more sinister threatening bronze statue. Like perhaps a tiger or anything really (other then a bull). This would allow charging bull to retain its original intention and purpose and also allow the strength of fearless girl to continue. Surely there are plenty of well seen and well known spaces in New York to make this happen. Because I agree that the charging bull alone is powerful, and that with fearless girl the bull loses its truth but creates another powerful image in a different context. Why not preserve both. Fearless girl makers have kind of charted on owned territory it should be they who moves on. I’m Australian so I cannot really speak for America and start a partition, but I fully believe in the preservation of art and the preservation of the purpose it was designed.
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i agree, they both need to be displayed, but NOT as adversaries…
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she should be facing the NYSE building…simple.
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She should be facing Trump Tower.
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Pingback: The girl vs. the bull statue: not what you think – Angry Robot
I found it really interesting to learn this history of this “controversy”. And once again I also notice how human language can change the meaning of, and our feelings about, “things” in so many different ways, all depending on which other words (concepts) we associate with the events at hand. And depending on how we “language” about it, we shift our suffering, and often pit ourselves against each other… My dogs wouldn’t see a big deal in any of this….
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Take it down.
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I dislike the reason behind which Fearless Girl was created, but love her. I say that Fearless Girl should be moved to stand next to Charging Bull, and then they both can retain their meaning, standing strong together.
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But that’s just it. Remove the girl from her current position and her stance loses all significance. Get rid of it entirely i say
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Solid idea, I like it. I truly resent the story behind Fearless Girl, but as noted, I love the work. It would be sad to see it go, but it would be worse to completely confound the meaning staying as is.
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SHE should be placed next to Charging Bull. Changes the game completely.
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Considering that nobody knows or cares about SHE neither during nor after the installation of the girl, I’d say this “smart marketing campaign” of theirs failed miserably. Not sure if this article is sponsored or not, maybe not, it looks like another attempt to promote the symbol through controversy and viral-effect ;)
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Did you not read where the author said he wasn’t a fan of capitalism?
-Rolls fucking eyes-
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I guess the line here is that capitalists will use anyone & anything to sell, without regard for ethics. Artists use symbols to tell a story & inspire people. I’d like to think Fearless Girl can see the gentle heart of the Bull & that’s why she’s not afraid, a Beauty & the Beast story. No one can steal the soul of a girl or a bull.
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Unfortunately life isn’t a disney movie and a bull that is already charging is not going to stop even for a little girl. That is what makes her stance so powerful.
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What goes unspoken in this piece is that the promotion was not of a product – Lubriderm or Lexus – but of a message of equal access. I myself would never want to work in the jobs the sponsoring firm refers to, but regardless of the industry, women are still woefully represented in management ranks. And this is just one symptom of women’s continuing struggle in the world. Fearless Girl symbolizes female empowerment and speaks to a broad range of people. Secondly, public art is for public consumption and subject to contextual changes. If that bull was sitting in the basement of a parking garage, it would be far less interesting. It’s placement – and it’s interaction with its environment – is what makes it dynamic.
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Move it to Washington and place it in front of the Capitol Building where it would have more meaning.
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For me all the thorny problems of these pieces together that you’ve written about above are what actually qualifies them to be together. Look at all these comments! All those column inches! That’s what art is supposed to do – to make us think, get emotional, do some reading, respond! The Fearless Girl has lead you to find out about the Bull which has in turn informed me. The outrage has informed us of the source of the Fearless Girl which the vast majority of people would never have known just by walking by her and admiring. Keep them as they are and keep people discussing art, how it gets made, exhibited, funded. One thing this debate has prompted me to think about is the term ‘guerilla art’. It’s funny to think of something that cost $350,000 dollars being included in this movement.
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Knowing the meaning of the bull, I think the fearless girl should stand beside him.
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I just love that artwork has inspired so much conversation. That is the real point.
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As with most things there is no simple answer – but from the point of view of this “foreigner” I applaud the fact that the bull was commissioned and installed without the use of public funds and remains in place (despite the best efforts of the “man” to remove it). That the fearless girl has been appropriated by women. That people are capable of seeing others point of view and disagreeing with them, without threatening revenge or death on those with whom they disagree. Finally I hope that the people who commissioned ‘Fearless Girl’ remove any commercial reference but let it remain in place to allow it to provoke discussion and reflection.
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I have an easy solution: Turn the Bull around.
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Then it looks like the Bull has turned tail and run. SHE, then, will have won.
An interesting outcome.
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To your point, someone could say create another sculpture and place it slightly behind but yet still under Fearless girl. Ideally the new art piece would be called “Steaming Pile.” Or… better yet, someone could extrapolate what happens when a Fearless Girl stands in the path of a Charging Bull and create a sculpture of that. Call it “Good Initiative, Bad Judgement.” I think what irks me the most about this whole thing beyond the corporate strings, etc, is how someone took something fairly universal for all Americans and essentially injected gender politics into it unnecessarily. Maybe a better sculpture would be a female bovine running alongside the bull and call it “Stampeding Heifer.”
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move Fearless Girl to the ferry front. or someplace looking back towards where her ancestors came from! looking back as to say I will make it no matter the struggle! Which also shows well for the COMPANY MAKING IT! and thriving! the American dream to do better than where she came from! to do better every Generation!
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Pingback: On Fearless Girl statue. | A(r)CT
I want to see someone put a big mirror in front of her labeled SSGA at the top, and have her staring at herself looking tough. Take that commercialization of feminism and turn it into the vanity of State Street Global Advisors.
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Why not turn the bull’s direction 180 degrees and call it a day?
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Probably because then looks like SHE won the confrontation, and the bull is now in retreat.
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Why not turn the girl 180 degrees?
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This is an incredibly complex matter and I love that you treat it as such and look at it from the different points of view understanding all of them.
Problem with art is that, at some point, it stops meaning what you intended it to mean and it starts meaning what people think it means. It happens to words, too. It happens to practically everything. So, to be honest, I don’t think anybody is aware of the fact that Fearless Girl is part of an advertising campaign and thus, the advertisement is useless. But the message is not, the message is important and powerful and needed. So I might hate the fact that the bull was born from an honest feeling and the girl is just a commercial ruse, but I can’t hate the girl or love the bull because their meaning has changed.
In spite of that I totally agree with you, the guy has a point. He put effort and money into making a meaningful work of art and now a big corporation has destroyed that meaning. I would be appalled myself, were I him, and I wouldn’t judge him if he decided to take his bull and put it somewhere else (it’s too late, though, they would just put another one in its stead). It’s a terrible, terrible thing to be misunderstood and to have one thing you hold dear transformed into a symbol of something you don’t believe in.
But still, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bull, that his stance is aggresive and that the little girl is a little girl and her stance is defiant. If you put them together, the new meaning is obvious. Why? Why is it obvious? We are used to seeing that, male aggressiveness as a symbol of strength. That’s what Di Modica was thinking when he created the bull. That’s what most people think of when prompted: “hey, think of a symbol of strength!”. It’s always a bull. Or a male lion. Or a stud. Or a male wolf. Or Heracles. But we are so used to it that we don’t realize it, we just accept it as normal. And that’s why Fearless Girl is so powerful when put in front of the bull, because it’s not about physical strength, it’s about character. Which, historically, hasn’t been often assigned to females. That’s why, even if the guy do have a point, we still need the girl, no matter who created her of why, because the meaning is greater than the intentions and the meaning is not given by the artist, but by the audience.
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Personally I’ve never liked the Bull. It’s a nasty bit of bronze that sums up the sort of thuggish and bullying personalties one so often finds in the business world. The girl sums up what most of us would like to do to them.
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Put the statutes side by side, as if they were teaming up for something. That would look a lot better.
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Does the fact that something was commissioned for commercial intent change the fact that the artists (likely) poured their heart and soul into a piece of work? (Not all artists have $350,000 sitting around)
Did he, Arturo Di Modica, not initially force his work upon the people of New York without asking?
So now, the tables have turned, and he’s unhappy that another piece of work was forced upon his… Oh, the irony!
Personally, I am actually quite intrigued that a new piece of work was installed suddenly changing the dynamics and perception of the old piece and in turn creating a third when viewed as a whole..
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turn the bull around and back it up about 20 paces
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that’ll make the fearless girl go find another location real quick.
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Nothing about Fearless Girl there screams commercialization, nor is it blatantly a commissioned piece of advertising. I’m not doubting that this is true (that some corporation did pay to have it done) but that hardly detracts from the power of this piece, this girl facing down the symbol of Wall Street. Sorry. A lot of great art was commissioned by the powers of their times. I suppose that since the di Medicis commissioned so much of Da Vinci’s work we should just dismiss HIM LOL. Now I do agree that the power of the new addition is entirely due to the existence of the bull – while the Charging Bull stands alone quite well. But that’s a different criticism.
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Reblogged this on Sasha Cameron – Writer and commented:
He has a point about Di Modica’s point. I’m not sure what to think now.
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1) The Bull’s meaning was appropriated long before the Girl arrived. It less represents “strength of the American people” — and more capitalist greed, housing crisis, “Citizens United,” or the irresistable force of Goldman Sachs. The times changed the art, and necessitated an updated response.
2) The Sistine Chapel was a commissioned advertisement for the Church. The source of art does not negate it’s quality, aye?
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Fingers crossed someone makes a ‘real’ fearless girl statue to place between them, to stand up to the imposter who looks like a girl, and protect and stand by the bull! A great message for young girls
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If i were Di Modica, I would simply show up one fine night with a truck and… turn the bull around.
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So that it’s in retreat from the girl? That’d be great!
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Problem is Fearless Girl wont be turned or moved or altered in any way because corporations own it. Turn the bull around or a quarter turn and no longer does it have anything to do with the girl. WIN
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I think they should add a fearless little boy and dedicate it to the children. For they are our future and fear is what’s holding them back from greatness.
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I don’t know. I mean, the origins of the Fearless Girl statue are one thing, and while they may be less than satisfying, ultimately they resulted in the same artistic statement, taken at face value. When you look at the statue, you don’t see an ad for an investment fund. Even if that’s what it IS, it’s not what you see.
But Arturo Di Modica’s complaint, though he may “have a point”, strikes me as self-importance. The small detail missing (or, not explicitly spelled out) in your retelling of Charging Bull’s history is that the current location of the bull is not its original one. When Di Modica originally placed the bull, it wasn’t in Bowling Green Park. It was directly under the NYSE christmas tree. Essentially, he was appropriating the NYSE itself in HIS art, and (even though it was an ostensibly positive one) they did not appreciate it at all, and removed the bull. They later released it — only after he reimbursed them for the removal costs — to be installed a few blocks away.
So, while you say that appropriation of their art “would piss off any artist”, I don’t think that’s so cut and dried either. In the spirit of art as conversation, of all art as commentary on some aspect of life or reality, then the Fearless Girl doesn’t appropriate Charging Bull or change its meaning, rather it responds to his statue with a counterpoint of its own, the same thing Di Modica attempted to do with his statue outside the NYSE. By acknowledging Fearless Girl and her message as part of that conversation, he has the chance to be more accepting than the NYSE was of his voice, when he was in the same situation three decades ago.
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Move Fearless Girl to stand beside the bull and see what people make of that. I understand the artist and why he wants it gone. I understand why the author hates it that knowledge of it’s purpose has commercialized it for him, but Fearless Girl, for whatever reason, lends itself to an important discussion.
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In the context of us looking at this today, yes the fact that she’s an ad kinda sucks. But advertisement will fade away as they always do, people will not exactly remember why she was put there, but the symbol of her will remain. As cheezy as what I’m gonna say is, the Santa we see today was designed to sell a beverage that’s not only unhealthy, but can do a decent job of cleaning a toilet. Yet, all these years later he’s still there and most people don’t even care (heck, or remember) that he was the master of all ads. It’s only the capital H and E that are the buggers here. The message is none the less true, and you can choose to see the SHE as the female collective if it makes you feel better about the whole thing. They both belong where they are, that bull really needed something to face it, might as well be a cute little girl.
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Actually that’s not true. I used to believe it too, I’m embarrassed to admit. Now it’s your turn to be embarrassed. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp
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He could turn the bull so it would look like he’s defending her :-D
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Thanks for the article. Disappointing to hear the real reason the girl was created. I think any artist should know that creating art is about giving it up to the world to perceive as they please. The viewers bring their own prejudices perspective and life experience to their interpretations. Being an artist means making yourself vulnerable. The best thing you can hope for is your work makes people feel something. These works represent a number of complex powerful important narratives that are unrelated to each other. If he considers removing the bull I think he misses the point of what art is.
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Why not move her front of Navy headquarters. Haha. No seriously.
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The Fearless Girl statue is way cooler, fuck the dumbass bull.
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I don’t know the answer, but I do think there should be a defiant little kid statue in front of all those confederate statues they refuse to remove. Seems like the perfect compromise.
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Ok, enough. I’ve seen this now posted on my Facebook like four times. Nothing about Fearless Girl changes in personal meaning, nor meaning in a larger context because it was a project by a marketing firm. All it does is exposes the snobs who ignore history. **Most** of history’s art is from commission, including the Sistine Chapel and most, if not 80-90% of all master work – this includes stuff by masters that were painted just to decorate a room. “Art for Art’s Sake” is only a contemporary notion since the mid-20th century. Art is transformative and if good, living. In context and as human history evolves, so does art. In particular when dealing with post modernist art AND art that comments on economics, that message will naturally grow or pervert as time progresses. The original artist should be aware of this, he created that piece for notoriety, a comment on economics, and is also a bit of an attention whore (not unusual for most artists). The Fearless Girl is a perfect comment on a slew of issues the bull represents (and herself) and should stay. It’s a spanking on the asses of the world… and the artist now. … And lets be clear, humanity has meaning only in context, in the things we do, in the manner we live, in the way we treat each other, else we are just animals. Context always makes the perspective.
Art is not removed from economics, quite the opposite. It’s just that our opinion of marketing and pomp has changed, not the beast. We like to think everyone has some higher purpose and meaning apart from money so artists like Van Gogh end up notable because they appears to live apart from money, but only because he had his brother to pay for stuff. Reality was that he REALLY wanted to still sell his paintings… not just create. Also what’s reality below the surface? He likely also had lead poisoning from his paints because he used to lick his brushes. It’s all romantic in fantasy but doesn’t play out in the real world.
Now, I invite everyone who has managed to read down to the end here to steal this and put their own name on it. Let’s call it an art project.
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Fearless Girl should be making me a sandwich
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I would like to see another statue put into place that could change the meaning of this art dispute at bit. A statue of a man behind fearless girl with his hand on her shoulder, staring at the bull as well. A statue to represent the importance of fathers in a woman’s life. Not in front of her, but behind ready to support her. Not looking down on her, but gazing upon the challenges she must face with the skills he has help cultivate. Not pushing her forward or forcefully directing her, but letting her know he is with her in a simple, affectionate way
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My apologies if someone has already suggested this….let’s have her stand next to Charging Bull and together they take on the unseen foe?
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