Arturo D. Modica
Arturo di Modica (pictured), a sculptor who created the Wall Street symbol,’Charging Bull’, died. The Washington Post (WP) reported on the 21st (local time) that “Modica died at the age of 80 in his hometown of Sicily, Italy.” The village of Vitoria, where he lived, also issued a statement the day before and said, “Modica died at home while fighting cancer.”
It was installed illegally in 1987, but it became a specialty
According to the WP, Modica made this bull statue, weighing 3.2 tons and 4.9 meters long, with a private stock of 350,000 dollars (380 million won) in 1987. It is a sculpture created while praying for the recovery of the US economy after’Black Monday’, a major stock price crash in October of that year.
Wall Street’s’Rushing Bull’.
On the night of December 16 of that year, Modica and 40 friends rented a crane to install a bull statue near the New York Stock Exchange, the center of Wall Street. I did not get permission from the authorities. In an interview with the Italian media La Repubblica earlier this month, he said, “After several reconnaissances, I found out that the police patrol every 7 to 8 minutes. The operation time was only 5 minutes,” he recalled. New York City tried to demolish it as an illegal installation, but the bull statue survived as New Yorkers opposed the demolition.
The statue, which has become famous as a local specialty, attracts numerous tourists every year. Thanks to the symbol of the bull, which stands for’rising ground’ in the stock market, there is a myth that if you touch the horns or vital spots of a statue, fortune comes in. British sculptor Henry Moore, who worked with him, praised Modica as “young Michelangelo.”
Reporter Kim Sun-mi [email protected]