The “Fearless Girl” statue ― the one installed adjacent to Wall Street’s charging bull during this year’s Women’s History Month ― has a new decrier.
Sculptor Alex Gardega told The New York Post that the proud, gangly young woman “is corporate nonsense.”
“It has nothing to do with feminism,” the artist went on. “And it is a disrespect to the artist that made the bull. That bull had integrity.”
To protest, Gardega put up a work of his own: a shoe-sized pug urinating at the girl’s ankles. Unlike “Fearless Girl” and the financial district’s renowned bull, the dog is a carefully stylized work, rather than a realistic one.
“I decided to build this dog and make it crappy to downgrade the statue, exactly how the girl is a downgrade on the bull,” Gardega told the outlet.
Gardega isn’t the first to voice concern with “Fearless Girl,” which HuffPost’s Emily Peck dubbed an example of pinkwashing. Several critics have dismissed the small Wall Street addition as an infantilizing attempt at feminism.
The creator of the bull sculpture, Arturo Di Modica, has claimed the city violated his legal rights by permitting the statue’s placement at all. He’s suing State Street Global Advisors, the investment management firm that placed “Fearless Girl” near his work, for trademark and copyright infringement.
NY1 News reports that Gardega’s “Pissing Pug” has since been removed. “Fearless Girl” artist Kristen Visbal has yet to make a statement about the ordeal.
