“New York leaves The Intrepid Girl camp on its positions, for the moment”, titre The New York Times. On April 11, the municipality granted him a reprieve. For eleven more months, the bronze statue of the Uruguayan artist Kristen Visbal will be able to remain encamped on Wall Street, in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
But this reprieve was granted on one condition: the sculptor, the financial group that owns the work (the asset management company State Street Global Advisors) and the city of New York have six months to agree on a solution. persistent.
The girl and the bull
It has been several years since its installation in March 2017 that The Fearless Girl (Fearless Girl, in English) is the subject of debate and controversy, recalled the Swiss daily Time last February, in a presentation as clear as it is complete.
Originally, the statue was posted in front Wall Street’s famous bull, and was to denounce the lack of women in positions of responsibility in international finance. The sculptor Arturo Di Modica, author of the famous bronze bull, launched the first offensive, judging that the confrontation between the beast and the girl gave the wrong role to his work, shaped after the stock market crash of 1987 to celebrate the resilience of Americans .
The Intrepid Girl has been moved. From the height of her 1.20 meters, she now defies the gaze of the facade of the New York Stock Exchange. And she has lost none of her popularity, notes The New York Times :
“Thousands of people continue to parade each year to take a selfie with this unbelievably hard-hitting girl.”
Frontal feminism?
Others were offended by the identity of the sponsor of the statue. “Behind its feminist fight, State Street Global Advisors is a group that had to pay 5 million dollars in September 2017, shortly after the installation of the statue, to settle complaints of racial and sexual discrimination in wages”, highlighted Time.
Also added to the case is an ongoing copyright and trademark battle between Kristen Visbal and State Street Global Advisors. And because it was State Street that requested the permit to exhibit the work in the public space, “Visbal said she was largely excluded from discussions about the fate of her statue, which is rather unusual in public art, where priority is usually given to the wishes of artists,” add The New York Times.
Ugliness and relevance
In short, the little girl leaves no one indifferent. In January, the prestigious magazine The New Yorker had in turn given the illustration, in an article on the case. On the one hand, he quoted Michele Bogart, a specialist in the history of public art. Judging the statue aesthetically “awful” and criticizing both State Street and Kristen Visbal for their anything but disinterested aims, the specialist wondered: “Why would the city of New York want to have on its soil such a contested work, and produced by an artist who accuses her sponsors of mistreating her?”
The New Yorker However, gave the final word to Cynthia DiBartolo, founder and CEO of Tigress Financial Partners, who has worked in the finance industry for thirty years:
“[‘La Fillette intrépide’] brings a message of hope and inspiration to all of us. She’s just as much of a symbol as those big American flags flying above the New York Stock Exchange..”
–