When you finish with shoes, consider this: What can a herd of cows say about culture?
CowParade began in Zurich Switzerland about 10 years ago and is an event and exhibit that occurs in major cities around the world. Cow Parade is considered the world’s largest public art exhibit. Artists and non-professional artists (i.e. President Bush) are invited to the CowParade City to develop a concept for and paint a cow. The canvas? A life-size cow made out of fiberglass. A shiny, white, bovine form. Once painted, the cows are then proudly put on display in the streets of the city and are auctioned to patrons to raise money for various charities and causes.
October 18th marked the beginning of CowParade in Madrid. [CowParade Madrid homepage: http://www.cowparademadrid.com/tabid/450/Default.aspx] The creation phase continues through the end of November. The exhibition phase will occur January through March when the cows will run the streets of Madrid like the bulls of Pamplona! Accidental cow tippings and lesions will temporarily grant an unlucky cow a stay in the “Cow Hospital” to receive the necessary repairs and touch-ups before returning to their post. At the end of the exhibition period, the cows are auctioned off and proceeds are directed to charitable organizations and to fund social programs. This is art for everyday people. Watch this video clip from ElPais.com to get a feel for the “studio” these artists work in and see if you can get the gist of the story. In one segment, José Cardoso addresses the question ¿Por qué una vaca?/Why a cow? and the two aspects that artists say make the cow an ideal format for this communicative art event that aims to (re)connect people to art and raise awareness and support for various social causes.
http://www.elpais.com/videos/cultura/Cow/Parade/aterriza/Madrid/elpvid/20081021elpepucul_6/Ves/ Obviously there are some major CAS hours involved in taking art to the center of a city to make it accessible to everyday people in the streets and in engaging artists in creating on a such unique canvas to raise money for social causes.
While the cow form stays the same from city to city as CowParade travels around the world, the artists encounter new artistic challenges each year as they try to outdo previous concepts and as they grapple with their own interpretation of the cow as a viable piece/form of art. In addition, artists are influenced and inspired by the unique cultures, customs and perspectives of each Cow City.
If just the idea of putting painted cows into industrial and urban environments isn’t intriguing enough, try taking a look at some of the bovine beauties these artists have created! This link has un montón of awesome photos of vacas from previous shows listed with their patron, artist(s), and Cow city http://www.cowparademadrid.com/tabid/471/Default.aspx
Let us know your favorite. Is it Harry Potter cow which currently resides in the residence of JK Rowling?
CowParade began in Zurich Switzerland about 10 years ago and is an event and exhibit that occurs in major cities around the world. Cow Parade is considered the world’s largest public art exhibit. Artists and non-professional artists (i.e. President Bush) are invited to the CowParade City to develop a concept for and paint a cow. The canvas? A life-size cow made out of fiberglass. A shiny, white, bovine form. Once painted, the cows are then proudly put on display in the streets of the city and are auctioned to patrons to raise money for various charities and causes.
October 18th marked the beginning of CowParade in Madrid. [CowParade Madrid homepage: http://www.cowparademadrid.com/tabid/450/Default.aspx] The creation phase continues through the end of November. The exhibition phase will occur January through March when the cows will run the streets of Madrid like the bulls of Pamplona! Accidental cow tippings and lesions will temporarily grant an unlucky cow a stay in the “Cow Hospital” to receive the necessary repairs and touch-ups before returning to their post. At the end of the exhibition period, the cows are auctioned off and proceeds are directed to charitable organizations and to fund social programs. This is art for everyday people. Watch this video clip from ElPais.com to get a feel for the “studio” these artists work in and see if you can get the gist of the story. In one segment, José Cardoso addresses the question ¿Por qué una vaca?/Why a cow? and the two aspects that artists say make the cow an ideal format for this communicative art event that aims to (re)connect people to art and raise awareness and support for various social causes.
http://www.elpais.com/videos/cultura/Cow/Parade/aterriza/Madrid/elpvid/20081021elpepucul_6/Ves/ Obviously there are some major CAS hours involved in taking art to the center of a city to make it accessible to everyday people in the streets and in engaging artists in creating on a such unique canvas to raise money for social causes.
While the cow form stays the same from city to city as CowParade travels around the world, the artists encounter new artistic challenges each year as they try to outdo previous concepts and as they grapple with their own interpretation of the cow as a viable piece/form of art. In addition, artists are influenced and inspired by the unique cultures, customs and perspectives of each Cow City.
If just the idea of putting painted cows into industrial and urban environments isn’t intriguing enough, try taking a look at some of the bovine beauties these artists have created! This link has un montón of awesome photos of vacas from previous shows listed with their patron, artist(s), and Cow city http://www.cowparademadrid.com/tabid/471/Default.aspx
Let us know your favorite. Is it Harry Potter cow which currently resides in the residence of JK Rowling?
5 comments:
those are really cool! So creative! The HP definitely fun. I also like the futbol cow and the bicycler.
Unrelated to cows, I found a music video for the La Tomatina festival. It's not the one I was thinking of, but it's still kind of neat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEZiAAMKcSc
i love moobeam! It is so purty. Ms. Morain had a poster of a bunch of different herkies and this totally reminded me. It is nifty to see how people can make a cow so cool.
We had cows on parade in Chicago while I lived there. Here is a link though I could not find the official Chicago Cow site. http://www.chicagotraveler.com/cows_on_parade.htm I was involved in a fundraiser for a local Chicago theater group (http://www.neofuturists.org/) that did a spin off of the cow. Each artist was given a squirrel to re-create! I will have to look for the photos of my creation.
It's amazing that they have these things all over the world. Holly cow gave me a good laugh (Pg 4).
The cows have great punny names too :)
These cow parades really are international! I was browsing around when I saw a video from the Cow Parade in Costa Rico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybXvMbyaHzw
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