A New York City sculptor is so upset about the placement of the "Fearless Girl" statue that he decided to take things into his own hands to express his dismay.
Alex Gardega couldn't get over the statue's placement directly in front of the iconic Wall Street Charging Bull statue — as a powerful message about gender diversity in the workplace.
Gardega says his statue has nothing to do with feminism and that he is most upset for the sculptor of the bull statue, who had no say in the matter.
"This is corporate nonsense," told the New York Post. "It has nothing to do with feminism, and it is disrespectful to the artist that made the bull."
“That bull had integrity,” he added.
Gardega, who has never met artist Arturo Di Modica, the creator of the famed bull statue, said the pairing of the two statues was nothing more than a publicity stunt by a Boston-based financial firm.
So, to get even, Gardega decided to add a little something extra to "Fearless Girl." He created a statue of a small dog, titled "Pissing Pug," which has the small canine lifting its back right leg and taking aim directly at the girl's left leg.
The artist even intimated that he made the dog especially sloppily just to stick it to the defiant girl.
“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 said.
But Gardega's addition isn't exactly winning over everybody. Some women passers-by said, according to the Post, that the "Fearless Girl" statue had become a symbol of women, or just about anybody, taking on Wall Street.
The pug statue clearly wasn’t a welcome addition, considering it has already been removed from the site.
It turns out that Di Modica isn't a fan of "Fearless Girl" or its positioning in front of his charging bull. He told the Post that placing the child in front of his bull unfairly implicates his work of art. He did not comment to the paper about Gardega's high-legged addition.
Di Modica is suing State Street Global Advisors, the mutual fund company that placed "Fearless Girl" opposite his "Charging Bull," for trademark and copyright infringement, according to the Post. The statue of the child standing at attention with hands on hips, was placed in March for International Women's Day on a temporary permit. Mayor Bill de Blasio extended its stay for 11 months after pressure from women's groups to keep it around.
The statue’s actual creator, Kristen Visbal, did not respond to requests from the Post for comment on “Pissing Pug.”
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