Arturo Di Modica, the artist behind the ‘Charging Bull’ sculpture in Wall Street, New York, is taking legal advice on the addition of a new sculpture of a ‘fearless girl’, by a different artist, Kristen Visbal, that was placed in front of the bull on the eve of International Women’s Day. The new work, also in bronze and equally as kitsch, has proved so popular – becoming something of an Instagram sensation – that it has been allowed to stay for a year by the city’s mayoral office. Di Modica notes that the addition of the girl figure, who is posed hands on hips staring down the much-larger-in-size bull, radically alters the effect of his work – telling a press conference that “She’s there attacking the bull.”
Di Modica’s bull was installed in front of the New York Stock Exchange after the 1987 stock market crash, without permission in the middle of the night. It too was granted a retrospective permit to stay and has since become an icon.
13 April 2017
