'Pissing Pug'...Is this for real?

The girl is neither fearless or feminist and the artist who created the bull was right to complain

I agree. The commissioning of The Fearless Girl" was very questionable. In any literal interpretation it makes no sense.

In a mythic sense there are loads of myths and fairy stories where a resourceful girl goes through trials and comes up trumps. Placing her where she is changes the narrative completely to add her to that canon.

What the Pug does to the Girl perfectly highlights what the Girl did to the Bull. Anyone who's angry about the Pug should, in principle, also be angry about the Girl.

future, I do think the girl will be good anywhere, I think the spirit of the sculpture is clear without the bull, although obviously the bull does add a whole dimension.

If the girl had been opposite a new bull that was part of the scene, rather than using the original (and was placed on another street) then there wouldn't have been anything lost from the girl, but possibly from the stunt or event aspect of it.

I also think that if we forget about the pug for a minute and imagine that the sculpture installed had been the same girl, but something like back to back with fearless girl with a look of composing herself, so the image becomes one of her inner fear and the veneer of strength she shows to the world - sort of a visual 'I whistle a happy tune' then the artist who created the girl would be right to be annoyed that someone had altered the meaning of her sculpture, even if t actually spoke to a lot of people and was well liked. Not that I think the artist is at fault at all, as she was commissioned to do the work, and it wasn't her business to get permission or agreement for anything.

I didn't see it as about women in finance, though obviously it could be. I just didn't read the image of defiance as about women who want to break into that system. More about standing strong against the whole system.

The question of who it represents brings up a lot of central feminist questions, because while I do think the image of a girl can be meaningful to a woman as that inner part of herself untouched by society's expectations, I doubt we would look at a sculpture of a boy and see it standing for all men. We'd probably think it stood for children.

This goes right to the root of the way women are characterised as 'un-men', as if male is the platonic ideal of humanity, and we are an aberration. Right from children's cartoons where we have the smart one, the funny one, the brave one, and the girl one, through to women in business being badly thought of for not helping other women rise through the ranks we see this.

My point is that there doesn't seem to be anything remotely feminist about fearless girl. Where is the statue of Janet Yellen or Christine Lagarde?

Basket, I don't know. I like the work. The two are linked now in a way. Which I guess is part of the point.

What would have been nice is if the bull sculptor had embraced it. He doesn't have to certainly. But Bob Dylan has spoken warmly of the Hendrix version of All Along the Watchtower.

Don't be silly, sitter does the rationale of the 'artist' who made the 'pug' sound remotely feminist to you?

Nolove - in what way was I dismissive of women in finance? The statue is of a child. No 12 year old gets a paid placement or work experience in a financial institution. You've got to admire State Street. They created a publicity stunt as a marketing gimmick and then tried to justify it with a laughable explanation that doesn't stand up for a moment, but somehow everyone bought it.

I agree with Basket . The girl is neither fearless or feminist and the artist who created the bull was right to complain.
The pug exemplified how positioning artworks side-by-side causes the public to judge the pieces as though they are connected.
A statue of a pug anywhere else wouldn't have attracted controversy. It does here because it's viewed as a comment on and adjunct to the girl. The girl did the exact same to the bull.

Noneedforasitter presumably you're being intentionally provocative. How dismissive of women in finance you are, and of the girls who secure work experience or paid placements on their holidays.

I'm curious to know why people think 'fearless girl' is a celebration of women in finance. It isn't a statue of a successful business woman. It's a statue of a child. The only girls in financial institutions are there on a 'bring your daughter to work' day. To me the pug statue seems the most feminist of the three as the girl is a deeply flawed and patronising representation of women in finance.

All it needs now is a cat doing a turd on the pug's head. Then a rat biting the cats tail... and a flea sinking its teeth into the rat... and so on. When will it end?!

The pug statue looks literally like shit. And the girl still looks fearless.

Art is by definition subjective, and it's great that these three sculptures have enabled thought and discussion. However there is no "right" answer. We are almost certainly going to be taking our biases into our appreciation (or lack therof!) of any particular piece.

Pissing dog's creator seems to be more of a painter than a sculptor, and he has form for promoting himself through inserting his work into criticism of other artists. He painted a mural on the side of a van, with "Banksy go home" written on it.

I'm wondering if there is a campaign to make fearless girl a permanent fixture there? I'm not a resident of New York so I feel it should be up to them, but the statue itself makes a compelling case.

I do too, and I don't much care what reason she was placed there. The bull is an outdated piece of machismo, the girl added to the meaning both because of women in finance, but also because the kind of boom and bust economics encouraged by bullish markets is ultimately harmful to women and children and now some dude has come and pissed on it. And some women are backing him up in that, which never ceases to amaze me.

Do you think you will enjoy her as much when she's a standalone sculpture future?

I find Fearless Girl very compelling. When photographed over her shoulder, with the huge bull staring malevolently at her....and her not giving an inch....

But the pug is a comment on what the girl is doing to the bull. If the girl had been a standalone sculpture then to demean it could have been a comment on the meaning of the sculpture, although it could have equally have been defaced by feminists who thought it was a corporate lie.

The pig pissing on a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst would strike me as misogynistic, but on a statue of Margaret Thatcher? That could equally, and would be more likely about her politics than her sex. As it is, it's a sculpture mocking a sculpture that arguably mocks a sculpture.

The merit or not of the Fearless Girl being positioned there and who by isn't the issue here. It's the misogyny of the latest "artist" in question of how he's chosen to supposedly challenge it. He's chosen to demean the Fearless Girl piece and in doing so belittle and mock (to say the least) the image of a powerful girl. Not too different from the men who've acted towards it as in the link I posted earlier in the thread.

deydo that's a mumsnet first for me!

Gah, what madness is Fearless Bull? Fearless Girl!

Agree 100% Basket.

The bull was a piece of guerilla art that was created as a 'gift to New York' following the stock market crash. It is on loan to the city and the artist owns it, as well as the copyright.

Fearless girl was created as part of an advertising campaign for an index fund. Of course artists have long had patrons, and some wonderful work has come out of that tradition. However, a lot of that output was pictures of rich people or religious scenes. Or rich people in religious scenes. When rich people could have their faces immortalised in photographs, painting and sculpture experienced a rush of freedom.

The image of a girl standing up to the great forces of capitalism is wonderful. But it was created to sell a company, just like Dove's real bodies was. If it was a photograph or film you wouldn't necessarily call it art, probably design or advertising.

You can like the sculpture and it can be meaningful to you, but I can't see how you could argue that it's not using Charging Bull for commercial gain. The asset management company who own Fearless Bull have more than enough money to pay an artist when they use their work.

The bull was intended to stand for strength in advercity, and has been recast as a villain. The artist has every right to feel aggrevied that a huge company is using his work in an advertising campaign without permission. The pug is intentionally shit, and may not have much integrity, but its making the point that the girl lacks artistic integrity. I think the girl will be a better statue when it's a standalone piece.

What a sad little man. He has tainted his 'art career' with a terrible piece forever.

Oh well.