Sculpture: What You see Might Not Be Real
By Barry Ritholtz - September 29th, 2009, 2:34PM
Via the WSJ:
The sculpture “What You see Might Not Be Real,” by Chen Wenling, was displayed at a Beijing gallery Sunday. The artwork is a critique of the global financial crisis, with the bull representing Wall Street and the man pinned to the wall representing Bernard Madoff.
>
click for bigger photo
(Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)
Three odd things about this Chinese sculpture: 1) It appears that Madoff has horns (wonder what THAT means) and 2) The bull appears to be badly flatulent.
Worst of all, it somehow implies that it was Wall Street captured or uncovered Madoff’s crimes — when in fact it was the Bear market that revealed his sins.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Yeah, that’s supposed to be Bernie Madoff against the wall…at least according to the BBC.
One hopes this sculpture doesn’t perpetuate the common stereotype that Jews have horns. A stereotype that happens to be derived from another sculpture.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
more appropriately, shoulda been a Bear.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I like the shoe on the ground.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Perhaps the bull was castrated and his neck is now broken as well…
September 29th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
bizarre.
I can’t imagine spending as many hours as he did focused on that image. Talk about a free mind warp
September 29th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Underneath all the flatulence is the American people.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I see the flatulence more like the aftermath similar to rocket exhaust like when the Space Shuttle takes off.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Having Madoff in there is redundant…
All the sculpture really needs to make an accurate statement is the bull and his, um, rocket fuel…
September 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Speaking of bull excrement…..
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/09/29/sec-weighs-new-rules-for-lending-of-securities-wsj-com/
September 29th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Nice to see the bull has been eating his cauliflower…
September 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Something got lost in translation.
A translation of the above from English to Chinese and back:
Something obtained has lost in the translation.
Makes perfect sense.
(Translation: Has the consummation truth).
September 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I fail to see the meaning of this.
this is not a plug-in Barry, I don’t know the person but i thought it was stunning:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/6202563/Photo-realistic-paintings-by-Alyssa-Monks.html
September 29th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I just see a bull with a big stick up its ass. And the bull has its head up the ass of a fat man who has short legs and a pointy headed manager hair cut. And it all emanates from a small mountain of cow turds. Is this a Creation Theory piece of sculpture? That bull has rocket powered shit.
September 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Mannwich Says:
September 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Speaking of bull excrement…..
According to the Goldman Sachs handout, short sellers can locate the underlying equities 99.9% of the time. So then there shouldn’t be any problems with the new rules on naked short selling, right?
What am I missing here?
September 29th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I can’t tell. Is the fat man smiling? Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but are we intruding on a personal moment?
September 29th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Is this the Chinese version of a mechanical bull ride? If you want karaoke you go to Japan. If you’re really tough you visit the China bar scene and take The Great Leap Forward.
September 29th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
one word-
hideous
September 29th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Is there a Ladies Version where the woman is facing the bull and his ears are helping do the tickle?
September 29th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I’m sorry, but that (F)*ART fucking ROCKS!
September 29th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Looks like it’s colonoscopy time. I think that’s going to leave a mark.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Worst of all, it somehow implies that it was Wall Street captured or uncovered Madoff’s crimes — when in fact it was the Bear market that revealed his sins.
My interpretation is that Madoff IS Wall Street. He IS the bull in the form of a centaur-like creature. All of Wall Street was no better than Madoff, sent into orbit on nothing more than flatulence, only to fatally strike a wall.
So, you can rest easy. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying all along?
September 29th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
That’s not flatulence. Somebody shoved an a-bomb up the bull’s ass. That’s a mushroom cloud we’re looking at.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
My advice would be to never walk UNDER that thing.
September 30th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Nice catch Transor. I wonder if he’s subtly implying that he believes that there is yet another shoe to drop in the future…?
September 30th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Boy, these have been one of the funniest comments I have ever seen. After reading all of them I came to my interpretation:
- The bull market is based on a lot of congested hot air
- Madoff was riding it until it hit the wall and he was crashed by this
- there are more shoes to drop
September 30th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Its really a nice sculpture
September 30th, 2009 at 7:29 am
http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/09/judge-no-proof-cows-tormented-by-oral-sex.html
Judge: No Proof Cows ‘Tormented’ by Oral Sex
In what Robert Ambrogi calls the strangest legal story he has read in a long time, if not ever, a New Jersey judge has dismissed charges against a former police officer accused of engaging in oral sex with calves. The reason the judge dismissed the charges: He had no way of knowing how the calves felt about the encounters.
————————————
What did that man do to that bull?
September 30th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Looks like the bull market is taking off like a rocket and is crashing into the center of Madoff’s ponzi scheme. It’s a snapshot of action stopped just before an explosive destruction through the wall (st.)
September 30th, 2009 at 10:27 am
[...] Photo of the day (hat-tip The Big Picture Blog) [...]
September 30th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Being an artist and having ’seen it all’ … that has to be one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen in my life!
If this is meant to be a creative critique of the US approach to things, it fails. China is just as ‘American’ in its business – and cultural approach – as is America. The Chinese have long embraced the American ‘big car/McDonalds’ version of stupid, there is little left but ‘monstrous’, afterwards is ’self- immolation’.
Excuse me while I leave the room and vomit.
September 30th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
stupid. definitely grabs your eye. but it doesn’t mean anything.