Artist installs ‘Pissing Pug’ next to controversial ‘Fearless Girl’ statue in Wall Street standoff

Image: Gabriella Bass via @dawn_images via Instagram

You can almost guarantee that if you put something out in public in NYC, it’s going to attract more than just attention. As 6sqft previously reported, Kristen Visbal’s “Fearless Girl” statue, installed by asset manager State Street Global Advisors and advertising firm McCann back in March to challenge sculptor Arturo Di Modica’s “Charging Bull” with her defiant gaze attracted controversy and selfies, seen as both an empowering statement and corporate drivel. According to the Post, NYC-based artist Alex Gardega’s Memorial Day weekend installation of “Pissing Pug”–a crudely rendered statue of a dog lifting its leg on the steadfast “Girl”–was his reaction to “corporate nonsense,” and that the fearless female “has nothing to do with feminism, and it is disrespect to the artist that made the bull.”

A post shared by Melanie Hunt (@melaniehunt1331) on Mar 7, 2017 at 4:50am PST

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The bronze bull’s creator, who installed his statue in 1989 under cover of night outside the New York Stock Exchange without permission, was in fact pissed off by the girl’s arrival, getting his attorney, Norman Siegel, to argue that she violated Di Modica’s copyright on the bull. But we’re not sure he’d go as far as Gardega, who told Gothamist, “I wanted it to be, like, punk rock lo-fi as a statement,” and that “Fearless Girl”‘s presence was like “sticking something in front of Michelangelo’s David.”

The offending pug, of course, got plenty of feedback from passersby, including a swift kick from one woman who said, “That’s an a–hole move. You call this art?”

Gardega (pictured above with his weekend squad) has since removed the spray-painted bronze paper mache statue, but plans to bring it back for another visit, then sell it for $10 online. “I am going to make a bunch of pissing puppies,” he said. “They are going to be [sprayed with] gold paint. I’m going to stick puppies around Manhattan for free.”

[Via NYPost, Gothamist]

RELATED:

• Artist who created Wall Street’s ‘Charging Bull’ angered by ‘Fearless Girl’ statue
• Kristen Visbal’s ‘Fearless Girl’ statue defies Wall Street’s bull to promote women in business
• ‘Fearless Girl’ statue supporters call on NYC to make it permanent