(ANSA) - Starting Monday, city residents and visitors here will get a preview of Italy's first CowParade, the now world famous public art charity event. Local artists worked throughout the summer preparing the life-sized, fiberglass cow replicas which will officially be on display from October 22 to January 20.
Santa Maria Novella Station is hosting the preview, which ends October 13, with a selection of colorful cows placed by ticket counters, on track platforms and station exists. In order to attract attention, there will also be a travelling CowParade preview which will stop at Rome's Termini station on October 26 and the next day at Turin's Porta Nuova station and the central station in Milan.
The first CowParade was held in Zurich in 1998 and was the brainchild of sculptor Pascal Knapp and his father Walter, who had asked his son to design a standing cow to serve as a unique, three dimensional canvas for artists participating in a Zurich art exhibition. The idea and event proved a great success and since thenthe initiative has become what organizers boast as "the world's largest public art event".
Pascal has added a grazing and reclining cow to the original standing one and he is said to be at work on a 'top secret' fourth cow model. CowParades have been staged in places like Chicago, New
York, Kansas City, Houston and London and have evolved not only in size, but also in creativity and quality of art, organizers said.
Since the cow sculptures remain the same, artists are challenged by past cow creations, inspired by the cultural influences of their respective cities and moved by their own vision of the cow as an art object. Despite the level of the artists who now take part, the CowParade is by no means intended to be high art, but first and foremost a public art exhibit accessible to all.
During the official run of the exhibition here, 80 cows will be placed along an itinerary traditionally followed by tourists in this Renaissance capital. The first cow made its appearance this summer in the central Piazza della Repubblica, in front of the famous Giubbe Rosse Cafe', where Italian artist Alessio Michahellas went to work on creating his 'MuccaBruca" (CowCaterpillar) with a bright red coat of paint.
Each cow has an official sponsor, to cover costs, and at the end of the event the cows are auctioned off for charity. Those which go unsold are either donated to a charitable organisation or sold privately at a later date, with the proceeds still going to charity.
Among the proud owners of a CowParade creation are Elton John, George Bush Sr., Queen Rania of Jordan, Nelson Mandela, Ringo Starr and former Czech president Vaclav Havel. This year CowParades have been organised in Moscow, Monaco, Barcelona, Bratislava, Geneva, Bucharest, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and South Africa.
