Sep 15, 2017
At War: Art, Representation, and Emotion
A Facebook “discourse” about the nature of reality
Everyone should take a look at this video for a little context about the changing meaning of The Charging Bull… It’s a nice short by the Smithsonian.
Before you all get too gushy about this, remember the “Fearless Girl” is a corporate publicity stunt. It is a perfect example of “virtue signalling” and the corporate appropriation of important cultural issues to promote their own image.
In the early morning hours of Friday, December 15, 1989, Arturo with a few friends dropped the Charging Bull on Broad Street right in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The previous night he’d gone to the location with a chronometer to check — noting that every 5–6 minutes the police patrol would come by, so he saw he’d have to drop the bull and get away within 4 ½ minutes. But on the actual morning of the operation, Arturo and his crew discovered that during the day the NYSE had installed a large Christmas tree, blocking the way. Arturo couldn’t even turn the truck around. So on the spot Arturo decided to place the Charging Bull right under the tree, as a gigantic Christmas present for the City and the World. The next day the Charging Bull was news all around the world, and enormous crowds of excited onlookers and media surrounded the mysterious sculpture that had come from no one knew where.
The sculpture was removed at the end of the day by the NYSE, but thanks to then Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, Mayor Ed Koch and Arturo Piccolo of the Bowling Green Association, a permanent home was found for the Charging Bull close by at Bowling Green. The Charging Bull stands there to this day, visited by millions of tourists, a talisman for Wall Street traders, and a source of pride for all New York City residents. (Chargingbull)
http://chargingbull.com/chargingbull.html
“Funny, I was wondering if the artist’s reaction would have been the same had it been a boy and not a girl.”
I find it very interesting to consider if many of those responding here would be responding the same if it were a boy!!!
I am simply curious. I am a professor of art history, so these conversations fascinate me. I have a bit of a problem with the Fearless Girl for different reasons, namely that it was a PR “stunt” by a corporate financial firm (albeit women run and owned). But it smacks of corporate cooptation like the “flash mob”, which started out simply as an altruistic, “art for art’s sake” performance, only to be usurped by big ad campaigns with huge budgets and influence.
In the context of the original intentions of Di Modica, the Fearless Girl is a Wall Street investment firm standing up against a symbol of the “power of the American people”… Very strange indeed, how meaning is transformed over time.
That said, I am fond of the message being sent by SSGA and their personal ethics.
Can anyone see beyond the PR fog? Is there any critique whatsoever of the corporation responsible for funding and placing the metal object in front of the other metal object?
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“Genetic factors like levels of testosterone and how the brain deals with stress can skew female investors into being more risk adverse,” it says.
“Unlike their male counterparts women also have more vivid memories of negative experiences — the female brain is hardwired for less-selective memory which can further deter risk taking.”
The report describes their target females — it surveyed 1000 female investors for the report along with drawing on expert interviews and another survey — as informed investors with a holistic approach which motivates them to make fully informed investment decisions.
“However, this comprehensive process can become quite unproductive if it stalls with indecision. That indecision may actually be a desire to avoid regret.”
So, I too love the visual message conveyed with this. However, can anyone see beyond the PR fog? Is there any critique whatsoever of the corporation responsible for funding and placing the metal object in front of the other metal object? It is as if many of you are protecting an actual little girl here. But it is a statue, bought and paid for by a Wall Street investment management company to burnish its corporate brand. To call this “guerrilla art” is a mockery of the very nature of the concept. It is pure marketing.
If this were an actual work — placed by an artist of her own accord — as an act of “guerrilla art”, that would be one thing, but it is not. There is a 24 hour webcam and police surveillance of the Charging Bull. This Context matters. Patronage matters.
SSGA has 10 contracts with the City of New York, which red-flags investigations of vendors in the Mayor’s Office of Contracts Vendex system.
The system’s “Caution List” notes a January 2016 agreement in which State Street paid $12 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges over the firm’s alleged involvement in an Ohio bribery scandal.
Prosecutors in Ohio charged that the executive who ran State Street’s public funds group steered kickbacks to a state bureaucrat to win lucrative contracts managing pension funds.
The Vendex list also cites a pending investigation of State Street by the SEC and an unspecified U.S. attorney over allegations that the bank drastically overcharged customers.
Last April, Massachusetts filed a complaint against State Street Global Markets LLC, alleging a “dishonest and pervasive culture of overbilling.”
The bank allegedly hit customers with “concealed markups” on everything from courier services to stamp duties, charging $5 for each message about fund transfers that cost the bank as little as 25 cents.
“Genetic factors like levels of testosterone and how the brain deals with stress can skew female investors into being more risk adverse,” it says.
“Unlike their male counterparts women also have more vivid memories of negative experiences — the female brain is hardwired for less-selective memory which can further deter risk taking.”
The report describes their target females — it surveyed 1000 female investors for the report along with drawing on expert interviews and another survey — as informed investors with a holistic approach which motivates them to make fully informed investment decisions.
“However, this comprehensive process can become quite unproductive if it stalls with indecision. That indecision may actually be a desire to avoid regret.”
There is a 24 hour webcam and police surveillance of the Charging Bull.
McCann Erickson continued its new-business streak with the agency’s New York office appointment as the new creative lead for State Street Global Advisors.
The Interpublic shop won the business after a review, managed by Pile and Co., that also included finalists Lowe Campbell Ewald and Doremus, sources said.
In 2013, the Boston-based investment management marketer spent $45.1 million in measured media, according to Kantar Media.
The incumbent agency, of more than eight years, on the business was The Gate Worldwide, which defended the account.
This year McCann has played a role in Worldgroup global wins like Microsoft, Cigna, Reckitt Benckiser and Cisco and Worldgroup U.S. assignments like Choice Hotels, Office Depot and GlaxoSmithKline.
But it is a slippery slope to begin giving over our public spaces to corporate art, regardless of how much we might like their business practices.
It is ultimately New Yorkers who will decide, and it seems pretty clear she will be staying as long as the owner(s) wants her to. It is they who kept the bull, and no doubt they will keep her.
Is it really necessary to hurl insults and accusations of “fragility” here? Seriously. Can an argument be made that does not resort to ad hominem attacks on the character of an individual who feels the original meaning of his sculpture has been increasingly altered over time to the point that it now represents the very Wall Street financial institutions he meant to protest?
There is no question that meaning/interpretation CANNOT be controlled by an artist, an author, a politician, etc., but that has not ever stopped anyone from attempting to influence the discourse about a given cultural “text” of their own making.
He has as much say in the matter as SSGA does in their statement made. He has as much say as any of us here do in our formulations of what is “right” or “wrong” or “acceptable” or not. The best art can do is be a catalyst for conversation, such that we explore issues of significance that affect our lives and the lives of those around us.
I think that what Di Modica is really trying to say is that the entire thrust of the symbolism is misplaced/misdirected. From his point of view, it would make more sense for the Fearless Girl to stand in front of the NYSE, not his Charging Bull. And he has a good point, despite the many assumptions leveled here about his “fragility” or being a “hypocrite”.
I see here many examples of comments attacking his interpretations of the Fearless Girl and/or suggesting they are wrong or he has no right to them. But this is done while simultaneously asserting counter-interpretations which insistently affirm they are the “correct” or “right” or “appropriate” ones.
It is like if I were to “interpret” your words here in a way that was unintended by you, but you had no right to explain to me that I was mistaken — and that my interpretation was valid regardless of how far off it may be from your original intentions or how lacking in context my interpretation might be.
That said, removing the Fearless Girl will not change the fact that his sculpture has unfortunately come to represent the very “Wall Street” that forced its removal in the first place.
I will remind everyone again, that this is a corporate PR campaign by “one of the largest investment managers in the world”.
If it is a PERFECT example of anything, it is of “virtue signalling”. It rides the coattails of International Women’s Day to pull a marketing stunt and elicit an emotional response in viewers, giving them a vicarious feeling of empowerment. (No different than Brawny and their Strength Has No Gender campaign or the Pepsi “Blue Lives Matter” ad!)
“In honor of International Women’s Day, State Street Global Advisors celebrated the power of women in leadership, and the potential of the next generation of women leaders, by installing a bronze statue of a confident young “Fearless Girl” in the heart of New York City’s financial district.”
But, let’s take a look at their Leadership Team. Of the 24 listed members, FIVE (5) are women! A whole 20.4%… One is Black, 4%. And 18 of the 19 men are WHITE, a FULL 75% of the entire group! My, my, how progressive.
If you feel so strongly in your defense of this “little girl”, then at least be clear-eyed about what you are defending and why.
https://www.ssga.com/global/en/about-us/who-we-are/team.html
(https://www.ssga.com/global/en/our-insights/viewpoints/enhancing-gender-diversity-on-boards-emea.html)
