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Public Art and its relation to subsequent Public Art - Charging Bull vs. Fearless Girl
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Ironically perhaps the best hypothetical I've come up with is someone adding a man restraining the bull or defending the girl or something.
But in that scenario I wouldn't be arguing that the "original" work needs to be protected, I'd be arguing that I don't like the theme of the new work and thus the addition should be removed.
The idea that a public work should be inviolate simply because it exists just doesn't sit well with me.
I'm going to cut this off here.
We don't need to continue arguing each of your specific interpretations to have a discussion about public art in this thread, and honestly you've never going to agree.
I don't appreciate this sort of implication.
Death of authorial intent has been brought up multiple times in this thread. One thing that happens with death of the author that perhaps was not made clear is that, as interpretations of a work that are removed from the artist's intention come into popularity, the artist becomes divorced from that work. Criticism of a work's symbolism no longer equates to criticism of the artist.
Which means when we appreciate the critical statement that the installation of the little girl statue makes when juxtaposed to the raging bull of Wall Street, it is an appreciation of the symbolism that is completely removed from the artist who made the bull.
Now, when the sculptor of the bull makes a statement about the new installation? Then we totally can make a judgement on the artist... which is still separated from our judgement of their work.
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But then that puts the Bull in exactly the same situation.
Without the context of the market and Keynesian Animal Spirits the context of the Charging Bull is lost. It's just a bull. But what it really is intended to mean, and what has become more widespread, is that it represents the economy, and in particular the stock market, rampant. If you'd never heard of a Bull Market or seen the statue used in relation to the economy or the stock market, then it would lose that meaning.
That isn't something "wrong with it" that's just one of the fundamental concepts of art. Donatello's David just looks like a nude dandy who has brutally murdered a guy, when divorced of context. Lincoln is just a guy in a chair if you've never heard of his or don't know enough about the roman symbolism to know what a fasces is.
I'll take Paglia over Foucault any day. Death of the Author is not the Ultimate Critical Position.
this feels like the most gentrified possible version of the graffiti/street art as art debate, which I do think is an important debate in all fairnitude
Well, I never claimed that.
But it's an undeniable fact that the popular perception of the bull sculpture is different than the artist's original intent. As such, death of the author applies here.
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Yeah, I don't know much about the artist at all. I'm pretty sure most people seeing the statue don't either. Thinking it's improved with the girl doesn't mean a person is now obligated to hate the bull's artist.
It wasn't installed in it's current spot. The spot it's in now is a result of the state taking it to an impound lot, and then placing it in a new location after public outcry of it's removal.
I am very interested in seeing how this art fight plays out.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I don't understand the relevance or what this disputes exactly?
I just see a lot of people being co-opted by the underlying feminist message of the Girl, rather then the very real politics that are at play in the dispute. The Bull's artist installed it like a Banksy installation originally outside the NYSE. It got moved, but it stayed on Wall St.
The Girl was commissioned by the firm that manages the SHE index as a form of marketing.
People have brought this up, but maybe it's just that they care more about the message they took from the statue than about the marketing behind it?
That seems a little goosey in and of itself to say "well yeah it's a nice message but it's done at the request of a big corporation so pfft"
I mean I get the argument re: the original artist. I do.
What he created, and what Wall Street currently is, are two different things.
Personally I'd have rather liked to have seen a statue next to the bull immortalizing occupy, but that's me.
I think the new meaning is better than the old meaning, and can be a better inspiration to people, so it should stay.
my .02
So then death of the artist, and what they say about marketing are all true...
I just find it a pity that the only person who put any real effort and paid any real price for the work states it displeases him and he's just looking to have a public conversation about the merits and let his preferences be known and he's mocked seems rather oxymoronic given the nature of the works.
You will probably gain more traction here if you cut back on implying that we're all stooges being co-opted by a corporate movement.
And if you made your arguments rather than complaining about the effort necessary to make them.
I didn't say that. You're inferring things and putting words into my mouth.
I will agree, though, that those that blindly buy into the new meaning without at least coming to some intellectual terms with the politics of the two installations kinda are stooges geese.
Just that the Girl was commissioned by a Wall st firm as marketing and was fully permitted for its installation.
The Bull was originally installed illegally by a weirdo artist and is 4000 lbs of bronze. The creator has stated he doesn't enjoy the light it casts on his original work. Stating feelings of evil or otherness when the Bull was supposed to be inspirational. He had no issue with the move from its original place across the NYSE.
I wish you all well and really didn't mean any offense.
That's really cool, but it's also completely different than the situation with the statues. As I put it earlier, adding the statue of the little girl is a non-destructive re-contextualization of the bull statue. The original piece is not, itself, altered in any way. The other piece can be removed and the previous appearance restored.
Whether or not the previous contextualization can ever be restored well, that's a philosophical question for the ages (in other words, it's not worth debating unless we're being paid by a university to debate it).
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I still don't know what you mean by coming to terms with that information, but I also don't see it as being more necessary than any other historical information about a work (ie, good to have, but generally not vital).
There's a lot of songs and music videos and short films and stuff being commissioned by all sorts of companies these days. Not just like, straight up advertisements either, but things like this, where Heineken sponsors basically a public works proposal by LCD Soundsystem. The whole campaign is just to make you go "hey, this company supports this thing that I think is cool, so I will associate its brand with being cool," but, you know, in a subliminal manner.
I don't think there's a hard definition for this kind of thing. So for example, you can't just say"any sort of corporate sponsorship means that the work produced is also devoid of authenticity or genuine artistic expression."
Much of the artwork we admire in museums was commissioned. Did the artists have a lot of freedom in creating these works, or were they heavily constrained by the subject matter? How much compromise was there between their artistic vision and the restrictions placed on them by those who were funding the piece?
Knowing the history of how and why a piece was created can be just as important as knowing who the artist that created it was. And while some times keeping that in mind is important to the context of the piece, it's not necessary all of the time. Obviously, the further removed a piece is from its initial creation, the more it is able to gain meaning absent from the original intent... I know we talked about death of the author, but this is more like, death of original intent, since it might not have come from the artist.
This loops back around to where companies might make use of works of art in ways that are counter to their original intent... a pro-war politician using Born in the USA as a rally song, for example.
Apologies if I came off as rambling a bit. I think important to consider, but it's a consideration that's different for every individual work, and every transformative use of every individual work.
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As long as their actual actions and behavior jibe with the rhetoric they put forth, not as bad?
One should hope that at least some decision makers at some companies make moves to do [good thing for community/world] because they actually want make the community/world a better place, and not just doing the thing as a manipulative attempt to engender goodwill from consumers as a way to fulfill their fiduciary obligation to shareholders.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
this is an interesting conversation
More or less. I think any kind of hard fast rule is a futile effort though
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
But public art depends on context, particularly this bull. You could argue that that means whoever gets there first gets to stay un-recontextualized forever, but that seems just as arbitrary as a free-for-all state of affairs while also leading to less art and fewer artistic conversations. So my conclusion is that public art is a war of all against all and if you want to recontextualize something by incorporating it into your own new art piece, you're ethically okay in doing so, even if it fucks with the original artist's intentions. That said, if the public doesn't like what your piece says, prepare to get criticism or calls for your art to be removed, which is only as it should be. "Art is a support system for life, not the other way around."
The more interesting question to me is whether this particular Fearless Girl represents another step in the worrisome systemic co-opting and defanging of feminism.
Besides using less metal, why is Fearless Girl a little girl and not a grown woman? Seven year old girls aren't leaders who make a difference on Wall St.
but i don't see how what the guy who made the bull statue wants is relevant to anything
what if the bull statue was shitty? would you be stuck with this shitty statue forever because it's vital to the artist's vision?
(i am of course more sympathetic to the political message of the girl statue than i am to that of the bull statue but that doesn't affect how highly i rate them as statues)
I think the Charging Bull sculptor has a valid complaint based on two things:
1) Fearless Girl is obviously using Charging Bulls popularity for its own benefit. They could have attempted to stick it in front of the NYSE or come up with an installation where they also provided the object for Fearless Girl to counter, but they didn't.
2) Unlike something like Wicked, Charging Bull can no longer be appreciated on its own. While Wicked, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and numerous other works build on/change/leach off of/parody other works, they remain independent of each other. You can watch Hamlet without obsessing about coin flips, but there's no way to view Charging Bull without seeing the change forced upon it by Fearless Girl.
Death of the Author is about the interpretation of art, not physically changing art.