Animals on Parade

Art Business News, Feb, 2001 by Jessica Lyons

Cities worldwide are bringing art (and animals) to the people with wildly popular painting pigs, cows, ponies, fish and more.

It's a barnyard out there. Cows, horses, pigs and fish are stampeding and swimming through the streets from New York to New Orleans in the form of fanciful public art. And they are bringing business with them.

The brightly painted, life-sized sculptures are gaining popularity across the globe, proving that everyone can appreciate art--especially when it's painted across a beguiling bovine. Public art is also pumping millions of tourists and dollars into the cities that open their arms to the whimsical beasts. It's an opportunity for the art industry to give back to the community and bring recognition and top dollars to its artists, galleries and publishers.

The Technicolor phenomena started with a cow. During the summer of 1999, the streets of Chicago were overrun by "Cows on Parade," a colorful exhibit of 340 cows, each hand-painted by local artists and later auctioned off for charity. These Chicago bovines followed similar Swiss cows, who grazed though Zurich in 1997.

Following a call to artists, Chicago's cows were painted and placed throughout the city. Throngs of locals and tourists alike followed the cows into the streets and into friendly conversation with fellow cow enthusiasts from coast to coast.

"It was a juxtaposition of something that shouldn't have been there--brilliant blue and yellow and red cows amidst the gray business suits," said John DeSalvo, president of Cow Parade Graphics and a Chicago-based giclee art edition printer. "People see the giant cows and everybody laughs, everybody smiles. It's whimsy, and that's what really made the cows work."

Furthermore, it's free, it's in an urban area and it communicates to all ages, races, ethnicities and creeds. Forget the Internet--the great equalizer of modern society is a cow.

"It seemed to make the streets more friendly," DeSalvo said. "It seemed to give people something to talk about, other than Monica Lewinski or O.J. Simpson. It was a common thread that pulled people together and gave them a common ground to open up dialogue. It was a social thing. And people really miss them when they are gone."

But when the exhibit is over, Cow Parade leaves something behind--and we're not talking about pies. Live and Web-based auctions follow the events, and the millions of dollars in proceeds benefit local charities, focusing on children, the arts and education. Auctions following the Zurich and Chicago exhibitions raised more than $5 million for charity.

An estimated two million tourists and $200 million in additional local business revenues later, the cows moved on to New York.

It's a social experiment, explained Jerry Elbaum, president of Cow Parade Holdings Corporation, the umbrella company for the marching cows.

"The animal is a way of bringing art to the public," Elbaum said. "A lot of people, for whatever reason, are reluctant to go into an art museum. They see the museums as too sophisticated, not friendly, and the cow is the exact opposite. The cow is a friendly animal--it draws people to it. They can appreciate it, and they want to talk about the cows."

Artists like the cow canvas, too. "The interesting thing," Elbaum explained, "is once the artists have done one cow, most of them want to paint more cows."

Today, 35 major licensees produce more than 500 products using the cow image, from books to porcelain figurines to cow snow globes. Cow beanies are in the works.

Next up, the cows will graze through Kansas City in a similar exhibit running May 15 to Labor Day, followed by Cow Parades in London and Houston. Elbaum said visitors can expect to see the lovable farm animals in South Africa, Australia, Los Angeles and San Francisco in upcoming years.

"Public art serves a very necessary part for the soul of this country, and I'm hoping this will lead to more public art," said DeSalvo.

It looks like his wish is coming true. As the cows hoof it from state to state, they've spurred other furry--and finned--friends to action.

On Thanksgiving weekend, Scottsdale, Ariz.'s downtown district was overrun by the "Scottsdale Stampede," a public art event featuring 40 life-sized stallion statues. Organizers hope the wild horses will drag tourists with them, benefiting local businesses like their bovine counterparts did in Chicago and New York. Between 100 and 200 individually decorated fiberglass horses will have the run of Arizona from June to October.

Finding inspiration in Chicago's Cow Parade, New Mexico's "The Trail of Painted Ponies" hopes to raise the profile of New Mexico as the horse state, said Michael Hice, of HorsePower, the painted ponies' organizers.

"There is a horse lover in almost everybody," Hice said. "Sometimes they are not even conscious of it. But when you start talking about horses and describing the project, it really comes out, this real affinity to horses.

"Furthermore, the horse is a natural icon for New Mexico," Hice continued. "Horses were introduced to the U.S. from New Mexico, as a work animal and as a form of transportation."