Los toros
Walk across the Hills Road Bridge and into Deloitte's offices in City House. An unpromising entrance, architecturally ugly. But what do you find once you're inside?
Bulls!
Bulls of bronze!
This one looks at you with defiant cluelessness. Jaunty ears. Short horns. A gloriously curved and taut tail. Cloven hoofs. And rolling folds along his chest.
A curly coiffure. And over-awed bulging eyes. His large round nostrils snort at you.
What is he doing here, in the lobby of an international financial advisory corporation?
Viewed in profile, he looks less aghast and more determined.
Penetrate more deeply into the gleaming tiled lobby and encounter Bull Nr 2.
This one paws the ground, dynamic, intent, ineffectual. Surrounded by potted palms and faux-marble stripes.
What is it you seek on your little bronze platform, o bull?
Humped and muscular.
Kind of weird and incongruous.
But kind of majestic.
Who is the sculptor? What is their title? Who commissioned them, and when, and why? I have no idea.
I call them los toros (pronounced with a Spanish accent) but that's just my personal name. Not quite because of Picasso's Guernica but more because of the Osborne bulls that stand around in Spain:
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| Manolo Prieto, Spanish Osborne bull, 1956 (ad for Osborne Brandy de Jerez; this one's near Seville) Source: wikimedia, © Grez |
And feature in Bigas Luna's film Jamón Jamón.
More bull sculptures
There are loads of bull sculptures out there. Here's a selection:
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| Pan He, Pioneering Bull, 1984, Shenzhen, China Source: News Guangdong |
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| Karl Henning Seemann, The Bull of Brand (suburb of Aachen / Aix, in Germany), 1976 Source: wikimedia, © Arthur McGill |
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| Paul Mersmann, Bull (Aurochs), 1934, Alboin Square, Berlin-Schöneberg Source: wikimedia, © Lienhard Schulz |
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| Laurence Broderick, Bull, Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2003 Source: wikimedia, © Green Lane |
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| Sally Matthews, Tarw (Welsh Black Bull), National Botanic Garden of Wales, c.2009 Source: Garden of Wales |
The Bull of Wall Street lurches madly. He is a guerrilla sculpture, transported to Wall Street in 1989, after the stock market crash (one of the many?) in trucks by the artist. And now still there, a tourist attraction.
It has affinities with Deloitte's.
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Arturo di Modica, Charging Bull (aka The Bull of Wall Street), 1989
Source: Redhotmarketing
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What are your associations? Bull and multinational business? Bull and minotaur? Bull and matador? Bull and agriculture?
P.S. Children will love these. I used to look at them through the window with my son on the way to school. One day we entered and were amazed.
P.S. Children will love these. I used to look at them through the window with my son on the way to school. One day we entered and were amazed.
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