Charging Bull

Description

The 7,100-pound (3,200 kg) sculpture stands 11 feet (3.4 m) tall and measures 16 feet (4.9 m) long. The oversize sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge. The sculpture is both a popular tourist destination which draws thousands of people a day, as well as "one of the most iconic images of New York" and a "Wall Street icon" symbolizing Wall Street and the Financial District.

In Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide, Dianne Durante describes the sculpture:

The Bull's head is lowered, its nostrils flare, and its wickedly long, sharp horns are ready to gore; it's an angry, dangerous beast. The muscular body twists to one side, and the tail is curved like a lash: the Bull is also energetic and in motion.

The bronze color and hard, metallic texture of the sculpture's surface emphasises the brute force of the creature. The work was designed and placed so that viewers could walk around it, which also suggests the creature's own movement is unrestricted — a point reinforced by the twisting posture of the bull's body, according to Durante.

Charging Bull, then, shows an aggressive or even belligerent force on the move, but unpredictably. [...] [I]t's not far-fetched to say the theme is the energy, strength, and unpredictability of the stock market."

Di Modica told the New York Daily News in 1998:

That bull is one of an edition of five. … I'm hoping the other four will be going to cities all over the world, whenever somebody buys them.

In 2010, a similar Charging Bull sculpted by Di Modica, which looks "younger" and "stronger," was installed in Shanghai, called Bund Bull. In 2012 one was placed on Het Beursplein in Amsterdam.

Construction and installation

The bull was cast by the Bedi-Makky Art Foundry in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Di Modica spent some $360,000 to create, cast, and install the sculpture following the 1987 stock market crash as a symbol of the "strength and power of the American people." The sculpture was the artist's idea, not the city's. In an act of "guerrilla art," Bedi Makky Art Foundry, along with Di Modica, trucked it to Lower Manhattan and on December 15, 1989, installed it beneath a 60-foot Christmas tree in the middle of Broad Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange as a Christmas gift to the people of New York. That day, crowds came to look at the bull, with hundreds stopping to admire and analyze the gift as Di Modica handed out copies of a flier about his artwork.

Ownership

In 2004, Di Modica announced that the bull sculpture was for sale, on condition the buyer does not move it from its present location. Di Modica continues to own the copyright to the statue. In 2006, Di Modica sued Wal-Mart and other companies for illegally benefiting from his copyright, by selling replicas of the bull and using it in advertising campaigns. In 2009, Di Modica sued Random House for using a photo of the bull on the cover of a book discussing the collapse of financial services firm Lehman Brothers.

Since New York City does not own the sculpture, it has a technically temporary permit allowing it to stand on city property, but the temporary permission has lasted since 1989, when city officials said the new location would not be permanent. Art on loan is usually limited to a year's display. Although the city does not buy art, it accepts donations. A writer in the New York Daily News wrote in 1998 that the statue's placement was "beginning to look a mite permanent." According to an article in Art Monthly, Di Modica, "the authorities, and New York public, view it as a permanent feature of Lower Manhattan."

Use as a tourist attraction

As soon as the sculpture was set up at Bowling Green, it became "an instant hit." One of the city's most photographed artworks, it has become a tourist destination in the Financial District. "[I]ts popularity is beyond doubt," a New York Times article said of the artwork. "Visitors constantly pose for pictures around it." Adrian Benepe, the New York City parks commissioner, said in 2004, "It's become one of the most visited, most photographed and perhaps most loved and recognized statues in the city of New York. I would say it's right up there with the Statue of Liberty." In 1993, Arthur J. Piccolo, chairman of the Bowling Green Association, made the same point with the same comparison. Henry J. Stern, the city parks commissioner when the statue first appeared in the Financial District, said in 1993: "People are crazy about the bull. It captured their imagination."

The statue's popularity with tourists has international appeal. One 2007 newspaper report noted a "ceaseless stream" of visitors from India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Venezuela and China, as well as the United States. Children enjoy climbing on the bull, which sits "famously" at street level on the cobblestones at the far northern tip of the small park. One popular tourist guidebook assumes that a visitor will want to get his or her picture taken with the statue ("after you pose with the bull [...]"). A popular Bollywood movie, Kal Ho Naa Ho features the bull in a musical number, increasing its familiarity with Indians. One visitor told a newspaper reporter it was a reason for his visit.

In addition to having their pictures taken at the front end of the bull, many tourists pose at the back of the bull, near the large testicles "for snapshots under an unmistakable symbol of its virility." According to a Washington Post article in 2002, "People on The Street say you've got to rub the nose, horns and testicles of the bull for good luck, tour guide Wayne McLeod would tell the group on the Baltimore bus, who would giddily oblige." According to a 2004 New York Times article, "Passers-by have rubbed — to a bright gleam — its nose, horns and a part of its anatomy that, as Mr. Benepe put it gingerly, 'separates the bull from the steer.'"

A 2007 newspaper account agreed that a "peculiar ritual" of handling the "shining orbs" of the statue's scrotum seems to have developed into a tradition. One visitor, from Mississippi, told the Tribeca Trib she did it "for good luck", and because "there’s a kind of primal response when you see something like that. You just have to engage it." The enthusiastic reaction to the sculpture continues into the darker hours. "I’ve seen people do some crazy things to that bull," said a souvenir vendor, "At night sometimes, when people have been drinking, I’ve seen them do stuff to that bull that you couldn’t print in a newspaper."

Following the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, the sculpture was placed under police guard and was generally off-limits to tourists for almost three years, but is now again openly accessible.

In popular culture

The sculpture is featured in the films For Richer or Poorer (1997), Hitch (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Other Guys (2010), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), Arthur (2011) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). It also appears in the TV series My Life as Liz, Weeds, and Mr. Robot.

A dancer posed in arabesque atop the sculpture in the 2011 Adbusters appeal to "Occupy Wall Street."

Significance on the Occupy Wall Street Movement

At the height of the Occupy Wall Street Movement in Lower Manhattan barricades were put up around the statue to protect it from protesters. As the Charging Bull represents, to some, financial prosperity and capitalism, the act of barricading it symbolically protected these values against a movement challenging those ideals. Once the volume of protesters decreased the perceived threat to the statue was reduced and the barriers were removed.