This is for the New York City teeming millions…
About every 4-5 blocks in New York, you can now see a statue of a bull which is often painted or dressed up by some artists.
Who’s responsible for putting these things up, and what’s the purpose?
Brian
IIRC, it’s a cow, not a bull. It’s some sort of travelling art exhibit. It started in Chicago, and is moving around the country. Hopefully someone can provide a link regarding this for you. My reference comes from a hard copy of the Chicago Tribune* I was reading several months ago.
It’s a fun charity thing. I’m sure more details will flood in from the Teeming M’s soon.
I understand the concept was first used in Chicago which has a long rich history of stockyards. (They brought it to NYC and figured we NYCers would think it had to do w/Bulls & Bears, I guess.)
They give the statues to various artists to customize; they plant them around the city in strategically appropriate places (like the Shakespeare Cow near the Delacorte Theater) for the amusement of natives and tourists; they auction them off in a few months w/ proceeds going to charity.
That’s what I heard.
See [http://www.nytimes.com/00/06/28/news/national/regional/ny-cow.html
for a story about this. (You’ll need to register if you haven’t used the site before, but they don’t spam you.) This is apparently a city-wide art event. They had a similiar event in Chicago this winter, which has been much imitated.
It’s time someone from Chicago waded in on this…
The Chicago event was called “Cows on Parade.” We actually stole the idea from a city in Switzerland. The cows in New York are NOT the cows from Chicago. The Chicago cows were auctioned off for charity.
Stuyguy got most of the details right. A sponsor buys the fiberglass cow, gets an artist to decorate it, and then it goes on public display for the summer. (An outdoor art exhibit in Chicago in WINTER? Whaddarya, nuts?) At the end of the run, they are auctioned off to the city’s overly-capitalized, slightly tipsy elite.
The Chicago cows were a tremendous hit. Though too many relied on dumb puns for my taste, many of them exuded a certain whimsy, a wacky charm. Plus, there’s the sheer surrealism of walking down a city street and seeing a life-sized cow. Wearing a skirt.
Other cities are doing similar projects this summer. Cincinatti has pigs. N’awlins has fish. There are others.
No web references, because I’m too damn lazy.
Well done, Beruang. It’s almost as if Royko were back.
we have a similar thing in toronto. except here, they are moose. they look silly.
i think it was $200 000 tax dollars that was spent on them.
how ridiculous is that?
We have a similar thing in Los Angeles, but here we call them ‘Subway Trains.’ I think we wpent 20 Billion in taxpayer dollars. How foolish is that?
My girlfriend and I enjoyed looking at the Cows last Evening as we strolled down Fifth from Central Park (she especially enjoyed the one entitled ‘Early Morning Show’, which was a cow dressed up as a prototypical 60’s housewife, robe, slippers, curlers and all). Some were even thought provoking (believe it or not) as to what they were suppose to represent (one in particular ‘This is not a cow’, which I am certain is a takeoff on Rene Magritte).
There’s a web site, of course: http://www.cowparade.org which displays the various cows (or eventually will - not all cows pictures are up yet).
I like the dash of fun and colour the cows add to the street scene, and will miss them when they’re gone.
{quote]Other cities are doing similar projects this summer. Cincinatti has pigs. N’awlins has fish. There are others.
[/quote]
Kinda like Rhode Island and the Mr. Potato Heads all over the state: http://www.visitrhodeisland.com/potato/index.html
I’d add something witty here, but I’m just speachless…
Toronto has the same thing, except they’re mooses. They were cute at first. After awhile you start to regard them with the loathing you usually reserve for lawn ornaments.
When Chicago had the “Cows on Parade” there was a “This is not a cow” cow in front of Midway Airport.
Oh, Hedgemeister, what’s so foolish about the L.A. subway? A city can’t keep playing “how many cars can we jam into eight lanes?” or “how much productive time can 100,000 people kill in a traffic jam?” forever.