July 21, 2019
Fearless Girl is a bronze sculpture by American sculptor Kristen Visbal, commissioned by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), a large asset management company. The statue was installed on March 7, 2017, in anticipation of International Women’s Day the following day.
The statue was originally installed in Bowling Green, a park in lower Manhattan, facing down the ‘Charging Bull’ (also known as ‘Wall Street Bull,’ a large bronze statue illegally placed there in 1989 by Sicilian artist Arturo Di Modica), but following complaints from Di Modica, ‘Fearless Girl’ was removed in November 2018 and relocated to a nearby spot across from the New York Stock Exchange. A plaque with footprints was placed on the original site.
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August 2, 2016
Charging Bull, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Wall Street Bull’ or the ‘Bowling Green Bull’ is a bronze sculpture, that stands in Bowling Green Park in the Financial District in Manhattan. Originally guerilla art, by Arturo Di Modica, its popularity led to it being a permanent feature.
The 7,100 lb sculpture stands 11 feet tall and measures 16 feet long. The bull’s testicles are 10 inches in diameter, weighing 107 pounds each. The oversize sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge. The sculpture is both a popular tourist destination which draws thousands of people a day, as well as ‘one of the most iconic images of New York’ and a ‘Wall Street icon’ symbolizing Wall Street and the Financial District.
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March 6, 2015
Alebrijes [ah-lay-bree-hay] are brightly colored Oaxacan folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures. The first alebrijes, along with use of the term, originated with Mexican artisan Pedro Linares (1906 – 1992). Linares specialized in making piñatas, carnival masks, and ‘Judas’ figures from papier-mâché. In the 1930s, he fell ill and dreamt of a strange place resembling a forest. There, he saw clouds that transformed into strange, brightly colored animals. He saw a donkey with butterfly wings, a rooster with bull horns, a lion with an eagle head, and all of them were shouting the nonsensical word, ‘Alebrijes.’ Upon recovery, he began recreating the creatures he saw in cardboard and paper mache and called them Alebrijes.
His work caught the attention of a gallery owner in Cuernavaca, in the south of Mexico and later, of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In the 1980s, British Filmmaker, Judith Bronowski, arranged an itinerant Mexican art craft demonstration workshop in the US featuring Linares, Manuel Jiménez, and a textile artisan Maria Sabina. Linares demonstrated his designs on family visits and which were adapted to the carving of a local wood called copal. The paper mache-to-wood carving adaptation was pioneered by Jiménez. This version of the craft has since spread to a number of other towns, most notably San Martín Tilcajete and La Unión Tejalapan, and become a major source of income for the area, especially for Tilcajete. The success of the craft, however, has led to the depletion of the native copal trees.
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March 11, 2013
Lock On is a style of street art, where artists create installations by attaching sculptures to public furniture using lengths of chain and old bike locks. The sculptures are often arranged to give the impression that they are interacting with surroundings.
The Lock On style is a ‘non destructive’ form of underground art. Artist Tejn is considered the ‘founder’ of the style. Taking scrap metal from urban areas, he welds the material to create sculptures which he ‘returns to the street’ as art. The genre was introduced when he started placing his welded iron sculptures, chained and locked, throughout Copenhagen and Berlin.
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March 9, 2013
‘Entropa‘ is a 2009 sculpture by Czech artist David Černý. The project was commissioned by the Czech Republic to mark the occasion of its presidency of the Council of the European Union, and was originally designed as a collaboration for 27 artists and artist groups from all member countries of the European Union.
However, as a hoax, Černý and three of his assistants created a satirical and controversial piece that depicted pointed stereotypes of the EU member nations. Fake artist profiles were also created by Černý and his accomplices, complete with invented descriptions of their supposed contributions. The sculpture was originally on display in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels.
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April 4, 2012
The Getty kouros [koor-os] is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros (representations of male youths). The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, in 1985 for $7 million. Despite initial favorable scientific analysis of the patina and aging of the marble, a question of its authenticity has persisted from the start.
Subsequent demonstration of an artificial means of creating the de-dolomitization observed on the stone has prompted a number of art historians to revise their opinions of the work. If genuine, it is one of only twelve complete kouroi still extant. If fake, it exhibits a high degree of technical and artistic sophistication by an as-yet unidentified forger. Its status remains undetermined: today the museum’s label reads ‘Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery.’
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January 1, 2012
The Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine mountain range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire, England. Completed in 2006, it is part of the series of four sculptures within the Panopticons arts and regeneration project created by the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network (ELEAN). The project was set up to erect a series of 21st-century landmarks, or Panopticons (structures providing a comprehensive view), across East Lancashire as symbols of the renaissance of the area.
Designed by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu of Tonkin Liu, the Singing Ringing Tree is a 3 meter tall construction comprising pipes of galvanised steel which harness the energy of the wind to produce a slightly discordant and penetrating choral sound covering a range of several octaves. Some of the pipes are primarily structural and aesthetic elements, while others have been cut across their width enabling the sound. The harmonic and singing qualities of the tree were produced by tuning the pipes according to their length by adding holes to the underside of each.
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September 28, 2011
The Statue of Responsibility is a proposed structure to be built on the West Coast of the United States. The prototype, sculpted by project artist Gary Lee Price, consists of a pair of clasped hands oriented vertically, symbolizing the responsibility that comes with liberty. The person who suggested the statue was scholar Viktor Frankl in his book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ He recommended ‘that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast should be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.’ His thought was that ‘Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.’
The project is being managed by the non-profit foundation. The project has progressed slowly, but in 2010, the Utah state legislature unanimously declared their support for the project and declared Utah (Mr. Price’s home state) the Birthplace of the Statue of Responsibility. The statue foundation would like to build it in one of five cities: Long Beach, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle.
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September 13, 2011
The Venus of Willendorf, also known as the ‘Woman of Willendorf,’ is an 11 cm (4.3 in) high statuette of a female figure estimated to have been made between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE. It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist Josef Szombathy at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria. It is carved from an oolitic limestone that is not local to the area, and tinted with red ochre. Several similar statuettes and other forms of art have been discovered, and they are collectively referred to as ‘Venus figurines,’ although they pre-date the mythological figure of Venus by millennia. The Willendorf figure was named following a model already over fifty years old, and shares many characteristics with other figures.
After a wide variety of proposed dates, following a revised analysis of the stratigraphy of its site in 1990, the figure has been estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BCE. Very little is known about its origin, method of creation, or cultural significance. The Venus of Willendorf was recovered in a site that also contained a few amulets of Moldavite. The purpose of the carving is the subject of much speculation. It never had feet and does not stand on its own. The apparent large size of the breasts and abdomen, and the detail put into the vulva, have led scholars to interpret the figure as a fertility symbol. The figure has no visible face, her head being covered with circular horizontal bands of what might be rows of plaited hair, or a type of headdress. She was thought to be very healthy given her weight and size.
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July 12, 2011
Artist’s Shit (Italian: ‘Merda d’artista’) is a 1961 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each 30 grams, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating: ‘Artist’s Shit; Freshly preserved; Produced and tinned in May 1961.’ At the time the piece was created Manzoni was producing works that explored the relationship between art production and human production, Artist’s Breath (‘Fiato d’artista’), a series of balloons filled with Manzoni’s breath, being an example.
A tin was sold for €124,000 at Sotheby’s in 2007. The cans were originally to be valued according to their equivalent weight in gold — $37 each in 1961 — with the price fluctuating according to the market. One of Manzoni’s collaborators, Agostino Bonalumi, claimed that the tins are full not of faeces but plaster; but some cans have leaked and confirmed they are indeed faeces — though whether human or animal has not been verified.
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June 6, 2011
B of the Bang was a sculpture designed by Thomas Heatherwick, in Manchester, England, located next to the City of Manchester Stadium at Sportcity. It was dismantled in 2009 because of structural problems. It was taller and leaned at a greater angle than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The sculpture took its name from a quotation of British sprinter Linford Christie, in which he said that he started his races not merely at the ‘bang’ of the starting pistol, but at ‘the B of the Bang.’ The artwork had been nicknamed ‘KerPlunk’ by the locals after the popular children’s game from the 1970s.
The sculpture was made from the same weathering steel (also known as Cor-Ten) as the ‘Angel of the North’ sculpture, which gradually develops a tightly adhering oxide layer as it is exposed to the elements. This layer inhibits further corrosion by reducing its permeability to water. As part of the design, the spikes swayed slightly in the wind in order to withstand gusts in excess of 100 mph (160 km/h). At the time of construction a time capsule was placed in one of the spikes of the sculpture, containing children’s poems and paintings, due to be opened circa 2300. The location of the time capsule after dismantling is currently unknown.
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December 20, 2010
Love is a sculpture by American artist Robert Indiana. It consists of the letters LO (with the O canted sideways) over the letters VE. The image was originally designed as a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, and first exhibited as a sculpture in New York City in 1970. This original sculpture is made of weathering steel and has been on exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1975.
The LOVE design has been reproduced in a variety of formats. Likewise, the sculpture has been recreated in multiple versions and a variety of colors, and is now on display around the world. While it was first made in English, versions of the sculpture exist in Hebrew, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders and frequently appears in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.
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