Arturo Di Modica: The creator of the “Charging Bull” in New York has died

According to the news agencies Ansa and Adnkronos, he died at the age of 80 in the Italian province of Ragusa in Sicily: Arturo Di Modica, the creator of the famous Wall Street bull in New York, is dead. According to the newspaper “La Repubblica”, he fought the artist for many years against cancer. On Monday he is to be buried in the city of Vittoria, as Ansa wrote.

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Sicily regional president Nello Musumeci wrote on Facebook that he was moved when he learned of Di Modica’s death. Even though he lived in the USA for a long time, Di Modica was always inextricably linked with Sicily, it said. Di Modica had lived in the United States for more than 40 years.

His most famous work is the “Wall Street Bull” or “Charging Bull” in the financial district of Manhattan near the New York Stock Exchange. The bronze sculpture – weighing three tons, five meters long – shows a grim bull and is popular with many tourists. Di Modica wanted to symbolize the image of the growing stock market; He recently told the Repubblica in an interview.

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In 2017 there had been a dispute about the sculpture: At that time, on International Women’s Day, the statue »Fearless Girl« by the artist Kristen Visbal was unveiled across from the bull. At that time, Di Modica protested against the fact that his bull was assumed to be patriarchal: He said of the Repubblica: “My Taurus is a sign of optimism and strength. I do not agree to see how it is transformed into a negative symbol. «His statue was made to represent male dominance over women. Later the “Fearless Girl” had to move to another place in front of the stock exchange.

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In December 1989, Di Modica and 40 others illegally erected his sculpture weighing several tons on the stock exchange in a night and fog action. The exchange bosses did not like that and they had them removed. In the end it ended up at Park Bowling Green, where it still stands today.

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