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Earlier this year, the now-iconic Fearless Girl statue debuted across from the Charging Bull in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. The piece was revealed just in time for International Women's Day and has widely been revered as an important piece of feminist artwork that literally stares the patriarchy in the face.
Granted, the sculpture was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, an investment company that has more than $2.4 trillion in assets, and has been criticized as a corporate PR stunt. Nevertheless, the message that Fearless Girl represents persists. So much, in fact, that Mayor de Blasio announced that it will remain in place until at least February of 2018.
But not everyone is cool with the girl's place on the street that's long been home to America's most lucrative and bro-heavy industry. New York–based artist Alex Gardega is one of them, and he is so upset by Fearless Girl that he created his own piece of art in protest: a sculpture of a tiny dog in urinating position that he positioned right next to the ponytailed hero on Monday morning. It was only in place for a matter of hours, but according to the New York Post, Gardega wanted to downgrade the Fearless Girl statue, "exactly how the girl is a downgrade on the bull."
Setting aside the argument that the girl is a "downgrade" to the Charging Bull (a sculpture that famously features a pair of humungous testicles), one would be hard-pressed to make a compelling argument as to why a shoddily constructed dog sculpture peeing on the Fearless Girl is a good thing for the New York arts scene. It's a crass, attention-grabbing move by Gardega that's about as subtle as a strobe light.
At the end of the day, at least the dog isn't as bad as the banker who was photographed humping the statue.