Add Category
Updated
The sculptor of Wall Street's Charging Bull statue is accusing New York City of violating his legal rights by allowing the Fearless Girl statue to be installed facing the bronze beast without his permission.
The 127-centimetre statue of a ponytailed girl with a wind-blown dress staring down the symbol of American corporate power was erected on March 8 to mark International Women's Day.
New York City initially granted permission for Fearless Girl to remain in place until April 2 but recently extended the lease until February 2018.
An attorney for Arturo Di Modica, the artist who created Charging Bull after the 1987 stock market crash, said the sculptor would this week challenge city officials over the decision to extend the lease.
He has already demanded the release of documents showing what procedures were followed, Attorney Norman Siegel told the Associated Press.
Di Modica claims the presence of Fearless Girl infringes on his own copyrighted artistic expression while drawing global attention.
The Italian-born sculptor created the mammoth bronze bull as a symbol of America's financial resilience after a turbulent end to Wall Street's "greed is good" decade.
The bull was dropped in the middle of the night in Bowling Green Park in 1989 without permission as an act of "guerilla art". The city later gave its permission for the bull to remain.
Di Modica has been a vocal opponent of the Fearless Girl, claiming the installation set up in opposition to his iconic statue is an "advertising trick" created by corporate giants.
Fearless Girl was conceived by State Street Global Advisors — an investment firm with $3.3 trillion in assets — and advertising agency McCann to push companies to increase the number of female directors.
Twenty-five per cent of the Russell 3000 — an index of the nation's largest companies — have no women on their boards, according to State Street, which manages many of their assets.
Nearly 60 per cent have fewer than 15 per cent of female directors.
ABC/Wires
Topics: sculpture, visual-art, copyright, information-and-communication, united-states
First posted