‘Fearless Girl’ artist surprised by spotlight
Her statue became rally cry for female empowerment
It’s been six weeks and Kristen Visbal still can’t concentrate on work.
Ever since her sculpture of a young girl with arms akimbo landed in the same ring as the Wall Street bull, the Lewes, Del., artist has been inundated with congratulations, media inquiries, requests for commissions and unsolicited reproduction deals.
“It’s been really intrusive on my life,” the blindsided artist confessed in a recent interview, her first of seven that day.
Many artists would go gaga over the international exposure resulting from “Fearless Girl,” a bronze beauty who became a rallying cry for female empowerment, despite her beginnings as an investment firm’s publicity stunt.
But Visbal, who won’t reveal her age or the two young Delawareans who inspired her little lady, is the opposite of an attention hound. When she finally granted The News Journal’s request for an interview this month, she expressed reservations about having the newspaper tour her studio — “my space.”
Both strong and sensitive, Visbal’s 4-foot-tall “Fearless Girl” was installed in New York City’s Bowling Green Park on March 7, the day before International Women’s Day. A stroke of advertising genius, the work was meant to call attention to the dearth of women serving on the boards of the largest U.S. corporations. State Street Global Advisors bankrolled the project, with help from top advertising firm McCann New York (of “Mad Men” fame). Visbal won’t disclose the sculpture’s cost.
As every good brand manager knows, timing is everything. With her defiant chin up, “Fearless Girl” planted herself in front of “Charging Bull” just weeks after President Donald Trump’s inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington.
The arrival went viral (#fearlessgirl).
She was greeted with pussy hats, praise from Chelsea Clinton and a flurry of selfies of women posing with their hands on their hips.
But not everyone welcomed the girl with the sassy ponytail and high-top sneakers. The bull’s creator, Sicilianborn artist Arturo Di Modica, claimed copyright infringement. His attorneys say the 31⁄2-ton bull, with his lash-like tail and flared nostrils, was improperly commercialized and “transformed into a negative force and a threat” by the 250-pound girl.
To which New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: “Men who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl.”
Di Modica originally installed his bovine (under the cover of darkness and without permission) in front of the New York Stock Exchange after the stock market crash of 1987. A symbol of Americans’ resilience and can-do attitude, the beast was later carted off and deposited in a public park.
Visbal says she greatly respects the 76-year-old Di Modica and has tried to contact him to no avail. The way she sees it, art in the public domain can evolve and interact with other public monuments without being diminished by them.
“Now the (bull) belongs to the public and so does my ‘Fearless Girl,’ ” she said. “‘Charging Bull’ has always been seen as representing a Wall Street community that’s predominantly male. And we’re saying, ‘Hello, women are here, too. We’re an integral part of this community. And, furthermore, we’re the future of this community.’ ”
A former saleswoman for the Omni hotel chain, Visbal established her studio in coastal Delaware nearly two decades ago. There, shrouded in vines at the Nassau Valley Vineyards, she has created a series of largerthan-life football coaches for Miami University in Ohio, a sculpture of a girl catching butterflies for Merrill Lynch and another of a mermaid riding a wave crest with dolphins for a South Carolina seaside resort. Her favorite subject is marine life, she said.
Visbal’s labor-intensive technique, called lost wax bronze casting, involves painting a rubber mold with hot wax. For larger pieces, she relies on a robotic arm to carve blocks of foam into the shapes she creates. The blocks are then assembled and finetuned before being covered in clay.
Visbal also plans to apply to a competition to have one of her works featured in New York’s Central Park, part of an effort to expand the number of female artists with public art on display there. With her newfound fame, she is weighing a move to New York.