We all know about incredible sculpture of The Charging Bull in Wall Street. But do we know how it got there in the first place?

Chapter 1 ART in the Age of America
19 October 1987 : Global stock markets crashed, with the Dow Jones falling 22.6%, triggering financial instability worldwide.
That is when Arturo Di Modica, an Italian sculptor in New York decided to create a symbol of optimism & resilience as a ‘gift’ to America.
It took him two full years, and all his savings - selling off his family farm in Sicily - to create the iconic 16 ft bronze, The Charging Bull.
20 December 1989 : Quietly, in the early hours before dawn, when the police patrol was changing outside the Wall Street, a huge truck arrived. In it was Di Modica, a few of his friends and … The Charging Bull.
He dropped it under a 40 feet Christmas tree, 'My Christmas gift to America.'
An act of defiance against authority. The individual, the artist. His creativity, his rebellion.
This happened just a few weeks after the Berlin Wall was torn down and just two years before USSR collapsed, ending the Cold War.

Flashback to the beginning of the Cold War, the end of WWII
Remember Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark, the innovative and uncompromising architect in the novel The Fountainhead (1943)?

Like Roark was designing buildings for ‘his own joy’, Di Modica created the Charging Bull on his own terms.
Mirroring Roark’s refusal to bow to collective societal conventions, without commissions or approval, Di Modica poured his savings into crafting a symbol of resilience and placed it illegally outside the New York Stock Exchange.
The novel, written in the midst of WWII, during the aftermath of The Great Depression, portrayed individualism as the highest moral ideal. While the world was engulfed in war, Rand focused on themes of individualism, creativity, and personal integrity, contrasting with the collectivist ideologies that were prominent in both political and intellectual discourse at the time.

Post WWII the west graviated more and more towards individualism.
The Cold War reinforced a dichotomy between the individualism of Western democracies and the collectivism of the Soviet bloc. The West championed personal freedom as a core value in opposition to communist systems.
The Charging Bull bears testimony to that - the way it was created, how & when it was installed.
December 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, Fukuyama called this era the “end of history”— a moment when Western liberal democracy and capitalism seemed poised to reign unchallenged.
The Charging Bull became the perfect metaphor: raw, untamed, and defiant.

Back in the 90s, it did seem to be The End of History. But only for a bit. The tectonic plates of Power were shifting, ever so subtly. So was the Bull. Where was he headed? And what did that mean?
Chapter 2: China’s Bull, Reclaiming the Narrative
In 2010 the global landscape had shifted. This was about two decades after The Charging Bull — a self-funded 7,100 pound embodiment of rebellious creativity, optimism, and defiance — was installed on the Wall Street by artist Arturo Di Modica.
The 2008 financial crisis exposed cracks in Western systems, while China emerged stronger, rising quietly as the West faltered.
It was in this ripe moment that the Chinese city of Shanghai invited Di Modica to create another bull.

STUDY THE PAST IF YOU WOULD DEFINE THE FUTURE - Confucius

The Shanghai Bund’s story is rooted in China’s Century of Humiliation. A period from the mid-19th to mid-20th century when western powers exploited its resources and imposed unequal treaties.
The First Opium War (1839–1842) resulted in the the opening of Shanghai and other cities as treaty ports, granting extraterritorial rights to Western powers.
During the Second Opium War (1856–1860), Western nations expanded their control, establishing the International Settlement in Shanghai, turning the Bund into an economic heart of colonial domination.

For decades, the Bund was a symbol of subjugation, reflecting China’s inability to control its own economic and territorial destiny.
But, time stands not still; and power, it shifts.
By the late 20th century, China began to reclaim its sovereignty and reshape the Bund’s meaning.
When the Bund Bull was placed in 2010, it wasn’t just a nod to global finance. It was a deliberate statement of reclamation.
It's leaning to the right and its red hue symbolized a ideological stance which was clearly not inspired by Western Liberal Democracy. It's upward gaze and tail signified a visual declaration that the bull was now owned by the dragon.

Arturo Di Modica, describing The Bund Bull, called it a symbol of “a strong nation,” reflecting China’s resilience and ambition. Where the 1989 The Charging Bull in New York embodied individual rebellion and capitalist resilience, the 2010 Bund Bull represented a collective reclamation of power.
The Bund bull transformed the narrative. Perhaps a reflection of the times. The artist was no longer working in the guerrilla act format as an Individual. He was commissioned. His creativity was now governed by the creative brief of his clients.
The rebellious Howard Roark of The Fountainhead had grown up. This was now the 21st century.
Way past the WWII. Way past the Cold War. Way past, even the triumphalism of the ‘End of History’.
This was Now. Where bold conversations between Individualism and Collectivism had restarted.
And how.
Arturo Di Modica's two bulls are more than just sculptures. They are these conversations. Conversations of which, each of us are a part. If we listen. And listen, deep.

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