Fearless Girl brings women visibility in a city full of statues of men
Fearless Girl brings women visibility in a city full of statues of men
Despite controversy over its placement, people are flocking to the latest, most famous statue in New York City that shows ‘women have balls (ovaries), too’
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Fearless Girl has become a symbol of feminist strength and possibility. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/Associated Press
Almost all the public statues of people in New York City depict men. There is a huge green exception in New York harbor. But Lady Liberty wasn’t real, not like the men who inspired the 23 statues planted in Central Park alone. (There are no statues of real women in Central Park, though there is one of Alice in Wonderland.) The latest, most famous statue in New York City does not depict a historical figure, either, or a woman, but she is a she. Fearless Girl, facing off with Charging Bull near Wall Street at the foot of Broadway, has given the city its biggest public art controversy since Christo and Jeanne-Claude draped Central Park with orange “gates” in 2005.
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But Fearless Girl, about 20ft away, is equally popular, in a markedly and interestingly different way. All day long, with rarely a second’s lag, people take turns linking arms and posing with the piece, including many young girls encouraged forward by their moms and dads. Fearless Girl, by artist Kristen Visbal, has plainly become, for very many of the thousands of people who visit her daily, exactly what the global asset management firm that had her installed for International Women’s Day last month asserted she was: a symbol of feminist strength and possibility.
Adam Burkemper, who was in town this week with his family from Missouri, approached the statue with his 11-year-old daughter. “See the little girl?” Burkemper asked. “That’s a little girl taking on a bull. Cool, huh? When I saw that, I thought of you.” His daughter smiled.
“I think this is a really important statue,” said Shari Mohammed, who had come in from Brooklyn to check it out. “And it’s good for a lot of younger girls. It’s not just adults.” Mohammed pointed out that a statue of a woman or girl in the city was rare, and said Fearless Girl was a symbol for “equality for women in general”. I think it’s really sad that we still don’t have equal pay in the workplace in 2017,” she said. “Why is that even a debate? It’s preposterous.”
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Fearless Girl is currently slated for removal next year, but public affection for the statue, as in the case of Charging Bull, could secure a longer stay. “The history of the piece is really up to the people of New York and the public,” Visbal said. Burkemper, who had introduced the piece to his daughter, summarized the debate.
“It’s art, man. It’s art,” he said. “We all know what it’s for.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/14/fearless-girl-statue-women-new-york-bull
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