New York: "Fearless Girl" statue has to vacate space on Wall Street

After being stared at for a year and a half by a little girl in bronze, the famous bull statue on New York's Wall Street is once again in its place. The "Fearless Girl" would be moved to another location in front of the New York Stock Exchange, said the investment company, which had erected the statue on the occasion of the International World Women's Day last year.

The little bronze girl wearing a billowing dress and ponytail, her hands on her hips and looking the bull in the eye, has long become a popular tourist attraction, like the bull built in 1989. Hundreds of people posed daily with the two statues for photos. At the point where the girl stood, now only a plaque reminds of it. Footsteps on it invite visitors to stand in the place of the girl and stare at the bull.

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"Fearless Girl" by US artist Kristen Visbal was unveiled on World Women's Day on March 8, 2017, highlighting the shortage of female executives in US companies, initially for just a month. Only after a petition with tens of thousands of signatures did New York Mayor Bill de Blasio decide that the sculpture should stay longer. "Fearless Girl" had been set up without prior permission - as in 1989, her famous counterpart, the "Charging Bull" by the Italian sculptor Arturo Di Modica.

Protests against "Fearless Girl"

The commission to sculptor Visbal was given by State Street Global Advisors, a large asset manager. For State Street, it was a marketing coup, as the company has been issuing an index for years that examines the relationship between women's quota on company boards and corporate success. But State Street itself came into disrepute, in a class action lawsuit, the company was accused of systematically paid 305 female executives worse than men in a comparable position.

In protest against the "PR stunt" of State Street, the statue of a urinating dog had been temporarily set aside for the "Fearless Girl". The "Pissing Pug" was placed so that it looked like it was urinating on the foot of the fearless girl's image. The artist Alex Gardega found that the statue of the girl "has nothing to do with feminism".