Aura Rosenberg

To know something without words, and have it stay in our hearts, protects us from our image of it like a piece of armor, 2021

90 × 60 cm

Lenticular print

Unique, signed and dated

Charging Bull (1989) and Fearless Girl (2017) are both initially unauthorized sculptures. Each carries strong ideological connotations. Arturo di Modica, who made the bull, dropped it surreptitiously on December 15, 1989, under the Christmas Tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The asset management company, State Street Global Advisors, commissioned Kristen Visbal to create the girl and placed it directly before the bull as if she was facing it down. State Street Global installed the work on March 7, one day before International Women's Day. This pair of opposing works became wildly popular with tourists, but di Modica eventually won his long-running battle to move the Fearless Girl away from his bull. As symbols, this pair has the unforeseen potential to flaunt intended meanings; both eliding and surpassing the projections of their creators. Their mutual dynamic is the raw material of dreams—perhaps why officials agreed to separate, and thereby neutralize, them. Aura Rosenberg lives in New York and Berlin. Her exhibitions include Martos Gallery, New York; Bridget Donahue, New York; Francesca Pia Gallery, Zurich; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; KW Institute for Contemporary Art (all 2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2017); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); Yale Union, Portland (2015); Forum d’art Contemporain, Luxembourg (2015); Centre d’art Contemporain, Grenoble (2014); Kienzle Foundation, Berlin (2014); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2013), Gallery 3A, New York (2013); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (2011); Swiss Institute, New York (2009); The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, (2008); Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2004); White Columns, New York (2003); MoMA PS1, New York (1999) and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1993).