#corporate art

Anyone who has ever been to NYC and has taken a stroll through Wall Street has probably seen a large statue of a bronze bull in Bowling Green. This statue goes by “Charging Bull” the “Wall Street Bull” and other names. It was created by the Italian-born sculptor, Arturo Di Modica. The sculpture was supposed to symbolize the “resilience of the American people” in the face of the stock market crash of 1987. It has remained at its location for 28 years. 

On March 7th, for International Women’s Day, a statue of a girl created by artist Kristen Visbal who was commissioned by the Wall Street Firm, State Street Global Advisors opposing the bull was installed in the same location facing toward the statue. It has been dubbed “The Fearless Girl.” Feminists from the movement created the statue to be a symbol for female empowerment. 

The addition of the statue made headlines because Di Modica feels as though the statue is distorting the symbolism behind his own statue. And this article by the Washington Post cites that he’s taken a stand against the statue in a press conference with his attorney. They are now taking legal action against the the company State Street Global Advisors that funded it. Bill deBlasio has given permission for the statue to remain installed until April of next year. 

This issue is making the news again because another artist, Alex Gardega, decided to make an addition to the “Fearless Girl” statue to insult Visbal and what the statue is supposed to represent. He says about the statue “It has nothing to do with feminism, and it is disrespect to the artist that made the bull.” His piece has been removed. It’s also worth noting that I haven’t been able to find a response from Visbal about this piece.

Before I provide my opinion on why all these statues are wrong in some way, meaning they have false or outdated symbolism, I just want you, the reader to know that it by no means, means that I am saying that these statues shouldn’t have been created in the first place. Although the “Pissing Pug” statue wasn’t legally allowed to install their statue there (and neither was the “Charging Bull” at first, the artist have freedom of speech and had a constitutional right to protest against a statue that he claimed was wrong. My inner-anarchist thinks this is pretty funny and would gladly watch this stupidity continue while eating some pop-corn. But being an artist, I want to chime in with my own critique. 

The “Charging Bull” is TERRIBLE symbolism for American resilience during the stock market crash. 

The stock market crash occurred because of a number of factors, one being the use of program trading which was “used by institutions to protect themselves from significant market weakness.” According to the article, this actually made market weakness worse. The article outlines that this program had a mechanism to correct itself but this mechanism failed when everyone  began using the same method of correction. Traders also used portfolio insurance as a way to save themselves from losing too much money but the insurance led to people having a false sense of security and making reckless decisions. I’m in no way, shape or form an economics expert but this article makes it clear that there was little regulation at the time to make sure that this didn’t happen. There are other factors that contributed to the crash but you can read about it in the link above. 
There is a concept called the Bull Market where investors are optimistic about the stock market and are more likely to buy stocks when the market is in their favor. There is also another concept called a Bear Market where the opposite is true and the investor is likely to sell their stocks. Again, I’m not an expert on these things, I’m merely parroting what’s in the articles. This article outlines that in order for a stock market to be successful, they need both. 
Bulls, while for the stock market symbolize optimism, they also symbolize stubbornness, recklessness and unchecked power. The stock market crashed, partially as a result of investors making reckless unchecked decisions and falling into false senses of security. To have such a symbol in the middle of the largest financial hub in the world sends a dangerous message to Wall Street that they do not have to take precautions while conducing trade. Although the crash did notcause another economic depression, the fear was present. Most symbols such as this tend not to age very well as the state of our economics is always changing. It’s an antiquated concept that the optimism and success of Wall Street will benefit the rest of the country as we have seen that large corporations that often go unregulated, take large tax cuts and do not create more jobs for the middle-class, working class and the poor. This bull is not a symbol of resilience for the American people, it’s a gift for corporate Wall Street greed. Modica shouldn’t be surprised when someone creates art to challenge his work, especially because art is subject to criticism, especially when it’s installed in the public square. 

The “Fearless Girl” missed the mark a bit…

The “Fearless Girl” would be an excellent symbol for feminism if it wasn’t created as a symbol of empowerment for Wall Street women.  As much as I disagree with the creator of the “Pissing Pug,” he’s right about the fact that the “Fearless Girl” doesn’t represent real feminism and that both men and women contribute to Wall Street greed. Hillary Clinton is a great example of this. The whole reason why she lost the race is because she takes money from Wall Street and she places the interest of her donors before the American people and even her own electors saw this. While I like the fact that this piece was created to reflect the changing times, on it’s own to me personally, it does nothing to address the fact that women suffer the most from economic failures and that there are women (especially white, conservative women) out there who are partially to blame for exacerbating that issue. What I do appreciate about the statue however, is that all the controversy that this has stirred up is created conversations about the meaning of the “Charging Bull” piece and I think that in the wake of Occupy Wall Street and other anti-super PAC movements going on around the country, this is a conversation that needs to be had. I also appreciate that there are little girls going up to this statue to take pictures with it and they feel powerful standing next to it but this should be a universal symbol of empowerment and not just for women on Wall Street. The artist and firm also had no intention of angering Modica with her art. “The bull is beautiful, it’s a stunning piece of art,” Visbal told The Post. “But the world changes and we are now running with this bull.”

About that “Pissing Pug” piece…

I think that Gardega just created this piece to anger feminists who like the “Fearless Girl” piece since the work of course, is of a dog urinating on the girl’s shoe. And sometimes, yeah, art is created to evoke and anger people into action and conversation and I feel as though it was only warranted to address the fact the yes, women also contribute to corporate greed and that the statue itself is a creation of Wall Street. However, I disagree with him where he says that the bull had integrity and I already went into why it doesn’t. He tries to make it seem as though he cares about real feminism but his defense of the bull and the addition of his statue proves that he doesn’t. He also claims that the “Fearless Girl” is a publicity stunt even though his “Pissing Pug” piece has garnered publicity for himself. Otherwise, why make such an offensive piece? Why a dog? Why is it urinating on her? If he were against this false image of feminism, why not create a better symbolic art instead of creating a dog to piss on this one? One can create art to critique other art (like Marcel Duchamp’s R.Muttpiece) but even art that counters art can be critiqued. My critique of Gardega’s piece is that by creating an offensive counter to this art-work, he added validity to the art’s intended message. Also the fact that he thinks the bull statue needs to be defended makes me believe that he lacks critical thinking skills. It is notdisrespectful to the “Charging Bull” piece to install the “Fearless Girl” statue because it is a critique that SSGA had all the right to make. 

Final Thoughts/Comments

I think that if Modica and Gardega want to become angered by having their art critiqued, they should probably re-consider being artists. Modica’s is not the arbiter of what art can and cannot be installed in that space, especially because he at first, did not even have permission to install his work in Bowling Green. SSGA did have permission to install their work. Also, if you’re a male and the “Fearless Girl” statue offends you, why does it offend you? I’ve seen a lot of men online who think that this statue is great and they’re taking photos with it and bringing their daughters to see it. Why does it offend you personally?