Lotta hate for the banjo out there, but the most recent episode of NYT’s “1619” podcast really gave me a new perspective. (Short version: pretty much all of what we think of as “American Music” has its roots in slavery and minstrel, in which the banjo played an important part.)
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Judging by how this guy dropped off the bull but took the opportunity to basically advertise that he had 4 more for sale it seems to me more of a ploy to get fame/money than what i would consider typical guerilla art. I don’t mind an artist making their money but from what i’ve read about the artist for this he doesn’t seem like someone i would admire.
amatuer
well, that’s embarrassing.
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Just stopped by to make sure someone brought up El Kabong.
Carry on.
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I think this is the first time I was beat to making a Pete Seeger joke.
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This thread needs some appropriate tunes:
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IIRC, Fearless Girl was forcibly detained and removed.
Besides, as wonderful as Fearless Girl was standing up to the Bull, the real art installation that should be placed would be a large Bronze of a pile of manure behind the Bull… maybe with an embedded but partially legible page of the Bill of Rights in the manure pile. Or maybe the Declaration of Independence. Or maybe, frame two quotes in the manure pile, the “That all men are created equal” and Orwell’s “Some are more equal than others”.
THAT would be a statement.
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Is that a shofar on the ground below the bulls left horn? If so, it gives more credence to the theory that this is a zealous attack akin to Moses’ attack on the golden calf.
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Anyone who professes to hate banjo music probably has never listened to music by Bela Fleck.
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For a banjo?
See, I could see it for a 7 string electric guitar, if wielded by Steve Vai.
There is a catch-all for “any other dangerous or deadly instrument or weapon,” but it is qualified by the phrase “with intent to use the same unlawfully against another.” So unless Mr. Varlack is himself a bull and/or a cast bronze sculpture…
You know who is missing from this conversation? All of the hand wringing defenders of slavery and treason monuments. It seems they aren’t really interested in preserving our precious art history. Maybe they have some other interest in those other pieces… I wonder what it could be.
Everything about this screams religious protest to me. A dude in what appears to be a prayer shawl, with a shofar on the ground, attacks a golden calf.
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It’s possible that it was a dueling banjo. Those are bred and trained specifically for the thrill of combat, so they’d probably be OK with this outcome.
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That bull sculpture is so damn ugly. I mean, just from an aesthetics standpoint, it is bad art. It is the velvet Elvis of bronze sculptures.
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Stay with me, here.
