Greg Fallis:
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.
Fascinating article. Before I read it, I thought the sculptor was being a dick, from the way he was being portrayed in media reports. After reading this piece, I think “Fearless Girl” should be removed.
It’s still a really weak argument. To claim the statue of the girl only has meaning based on it’s context, facing off against the bull, ignores the fact that same is true of the bull. Arturo Di Modica’s bull only has context because of where it was placed. He may say it symbolized the American spirit, but it is known as a symbol of Wall Street, which given the context of when it was created and where it was placed seems to be the clear intent. The bull also echoes the Merrill Lynch logo, which just adds to the connection.
Just because there is a corporate interest behind the statue of the girl does not make it any less a work of art. Most of the great art in history was commissioned by either a corporate or ruling interest.
Arturo Di Modica can be upset by the new response to his piece, but that i no way makes a valid claim for the statue of the girl to be removed. Art is a dialog, silencing that dialog is antithetical to real art.
You’d think feminists would be upset, seeing as “fearless” girl’s location essentially has her in the way of progress.
I really enjoyed the conversation on the blog post. Many different interpretations and thoughts. I’m curious Shawn, would you be so kind as to share why you think it should be removed? What specifically in this whole situation is the thing you think makes it worth removing? I’m sure it’s not a single “Ah ha!” thing, more nuanced and I’d love to hear your reasoning for why it should be removed. (I know it’s hard to get intent via text from strangers, but I assure you I mean well with my questions. I’m not here to argue with you or anything, just a fan of the The Loop, your writing, and curious.)
I agree with Arturo. Charging Bull was intended to represent the power and will of America, and it was seen accordingly for decades. Now, Fearless Girl changes Charging Bull’s root meaning, it makes the bull the enemy, the oppressor, everything negative in society. Any artist would be angry about such blatant bastardization of their work, and rightly so!
This isn’t about feminism either, so calling it’s detractors sexists only shows that people don’t understand, and/or choose not to understand the root issue. It’s simply passing the buck in the cheapest way possible.
Remove Fearless Girl, she has made her point. If you want to create a statue empowering women, make one that stands on it’s own and doesn’t draw it’s power from something else, which is the real point anyways, isn’t it?
Precisely. Had he placed it in the Meatpacking district the meaning would be very different.
And an opposite POV – https://weekwoman.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/on-women-public-art-or-no-seriously-the-guy-does-not-have-a-point/
Power and will != money. Bastardization? Art’s always in conversation with its surroundings and other art. Fearless Girl is doing PRECISELY what art should – sparking conversation. Does it make the bull an oppressor? Or does it mean she’s ready to take on challenges? YOU interpret it one way but that’s not the only way.
Understood. I hadn’t realized “Fearless Girl” was commissioned by a Wall St firm to market their own products. It’s less “art” and more “advertisement”, however well intentioned.
Here’s a thought – would “Fearless Girl” have a different message if she were standing next to the bull or at least, facing the same direction? Basically, not in front, “standing in the way” or “challenging” the bull?
Go to Florence, Italy. Marvel at much of the art there. Keep in mind a lot of it was paid for by rich families like the Medicis. So about that issue of the meaning of art being determined by who paid for it…
Standing next to the bull and ‘controlling’ it, perhaps?
If it bothers him so much… why doesn’t he remove his bull (so to speak)? It’s his. He installed it without permission one night and it’s been there all the while. Does he think he has some kind of exclusive to that square footage? Because he doesn’t.
Power and will do not = money. Power and will = power and will.
Yes, bastardization: to corrupt or debase something such as a language or art form, typically by adding a new element. I don’t think it could be more spot on under the circumstances.
I agree, it’s all point of view. However, Fearless Girl is not sparking conversation for being great art, she is sparking conversation by being controversial.
Her entire meaning is derived from Charging Bull. What is she without him? A playground sculpture. I agree with what Fearless Girl stands for, but she should stand for that on her own, she shouldn’t need Charging Bull to give her meaning.
He installed it himself, then the city removed it, then the city put it back officially on loan from him. Yes, I believe that actually does give him legal right to the space and his statue.
“another artist with a competing message” I’d agree but “another artist” didn’t just create this and install it. It was a commissioned work by a corporation in order to market their product.
Nothing is universally lauded, that’s a fallacy. The article clearly states that the bull was returned to Wall Street after being initially removed because of public support. I think that speaks for itself.
I think the correct word is “some” people. The question is, are they the majority? So far, I say no.
Not at all. But that wasn’t the point the original poster was making.
Regardless, isn’t it true that “Fearless Girl” is compelling because of its relationship to The Bull? That it would be far less compelling if it were in a public park somewhere else?
Yeah, ‘sparking conversation’, right.
I’m sure we just need a Great Leap Forward, right? That’d be progress in your eyes.
Charging Bull only makes sense because it’s in Wall Street. Put the Charging Bull in Astoria and it makes no sense. Change the Charging Bull into a Roaring Bear on Wall Street and the meaning changes completely. However, a Roaring Bear state in San Francisco would have a completely different meaning.
No one has to (or necessarily will) look at both sculptures together. Each can be viewed separately or together.
No artist worth his salt should object to anyone getting the “wrong” message. He does his best to deliver his intended message, but, in the end, the viewer has the final say as to what the work means.
alandanziger is suggesting how the Fearless Girl statue may be interpreted if it were to be placed next to the statue, at least I believe that is his intent in the post.
I was thinking of this as well, but in a different setting. What if the statue was initially placed facing against the NYSE building? Not against another symbolic art piece, but the exchange itself? How would that make the conversation different? Would the message and how it’s being interpreted be different? How? A simple thought experiment, but interesting to ponder. 🙂
Thanks Shawn, I appreciate the kind response.
Thanks for the kind question. 🙂
You are right, context means everything. That is part of the point the original author is making. The difference between Charging Bull and Fearless Girl is that Charging Bull does not cast Wall Street in a negative light, Fearless Girl is empowered by changing Charging Bull from a positive symbol to negative one.
Is that the only other choice you’re aware of?
I had no idea who’d commissioned “Fearless Girl,” and so interpreted it on my own. I like the fact that someone is now facing off with the bull, and that it’s a little girl.
Ooh, witty burn.
I think we’d hear lots of similar complaints from current critics of Fearless Girl, taking that new placement as an even more personal affront to their assumptions about their unassailable shrine of capitalism.
Given her posture, I’d expect her to be placed confronting something, if only to challenge its traditions.
Precisely.
You’d think detractors of feminism would have learned how to not constantly try to define it for feminists. Or to define whatever “progress” means.
Sounds like you enjoy arguing to extremes. Her entire meaning derives from how a viewer chooses to interpret her, regardless of her origin or placement.
Well, with a face like the one the bull has, I’ll bet there’d have been people who would’ve interpreted it as anti-meat.
And if Charging Bull did cast Wall Street in a negative light, it would not be an inappropriate piece of art. The local residents may not be as jazzed about having it there, but it would not make it an illegitimate piece of art. If he’s unhappy about it, then he can pull his art work, he does not own the surrounding area.
And the bull is meaningful because it’s on Wall Street and the symbolism of the bull to Wall Street and the context of the bull to the market crash.
Thank you, sir! 🙂
I like it when we can agree.
Not to the space. Not if the city decides when and where it goes or stays.
I would like to agree with you, Daniel, but I think it’s more grey.
On its own, in isolation, sure… the viewer picks what it means. But what if you wrapped a painting in a frame that explains how to interpret it, in a way that it wasn’t previously interpreted? Is that fair to the original artist?
I don’t know what the answer is, exactly, but there’s clearly a problem of some kind here.
I’m with Shawn and Di Modica on this but that’s less the point. What Greg did with that post is give a bit more context to a story that’s been stripped of it.
Context (and story) is everything although these days somehow it has less and less weight. This was going on before Trump and before Twitter but both Trump and Twitter have certainly added a lot of fuel to the fire.
That’s why I posted this side of the story – for more context.
The viewer of your example, hopefully made aware of the source of the added explanation, would still be free to interpret not only the painting, but also the attempt to categorize it.
Completed art often has its original context yanked out from under it. In mundane public life, we’re all presented every day with behaviors that we are then instructed how to interpret. Assuming someone has shown us how to do so, we can choose to read between the lines.
A bunch of years ago, Kent State University commissioned sculptor George Segal to create a piece that would commemorate the 1970 shootings on its campus. They were reportedly hoping for some sort of conciliatory bromide about “peace and brotherhood” (whatever that meant to a school administration that had enabled the murder of unarmed protesters).
What they got instead was “Abraham and Isaac,” a modern metaphor about two generations’ different views of obedience. They weren’t prepared to understand or appreciate this, and refused it.
The added context just keeps piling on.
Me, too, Mo! 🙂
I’m an artist, myself, and my viewpoint is that this particular controversy is overblown. The only pay of any real consequence we artists get is the enjoyment of the work itself—while we’re doing it. If that isn’t enough for any artist, then he/she’s in the wrong business. I think the bull sculptor demonstrated this at least to some degree by donating the sculpture. That should have been it for him, but now he’s taking issue with some imagined opportunism on the part of some corporation. SO WHAT!! I say, “Move on, man!” His (not really his anymore!) bull is a beautiful work, and it will likely endure for a good while, yet. But whether or not it does should be of no consequence to the guy. It’s done. It’s already well into the past. Take a life lesson from the Buddhist monks who spend countless hours tediously pouring out colored sand to make beautiful mandalas, only to simply brush them away once they’re complete. It symbolizes the temporal nature of material things, but ask the monks what they get out of it. I’d say the work would be quite rewarding in a spiritual sense.