For Art, For Charity, For Fun
COW PARADE is the world’s largest art event and keeps stopping by in cities all over the planet. Was born in 1998 from the imagination of Walter Knapp, with the aim of showcasing local artistic talents.
From Chicago and New York in 1999 and 2000 to Kansas City and Houston in 2001 and London in 2002, CowParade continues to evolve, not just in size, but in creativity and quality of art. While the cow sculptures remain the same, each city’s artists are challenged by the art from past events, inspired by the cultural influences of their respective cities, and moved by their own interpretation of the cow as an art object.
CowParade is not meant to be high art, however. It is first and foremost a public art exhibit that is accessible to everyone. Most important, CowParade ultimately benefits charity. At the conclusion of each event, the cows are herded up and many are auctioned, with a substantial portion of the proceeds benefiting charity. The Chicago auction raised an amazing $3,000,000.00 for charity, including $1.4 million on-line and $2.1 million at the live auction assisted by Sotheby’s. The average bid price on the 140 cows was nearly $25,000, with the top cow, HANDsome, selling for $110,000. The CowParade New York 2000 Charity Auction raised an equally impressive $1,351,000.00 benefiting several New York City charities. The highest winning bid was $ 60,000, for Tiffany Cow. The average bid was $ 18,257.
CowParade events have raised over $20 million for non-profit organizations worldwide since 1999. The CowParade auctions are conducted like traditional art auctions with live bidding.
Why Cows?
This is a popular question. Simply, the cow is a universally beloved animal. The cow represents different things to different people around the world-she’s sacred, she’s historical, she connects us to our past-but the common feeling is one of affection. There is something magical about the cow that transcends throughout the world. She simply makes everyone smile.
As an art canvas, there is no other animal or object that provides the form, flexibility, and contiguous breadth of a cow. The three shapes (standing, grazing, reclining) provide artists with subtle, yet interesting angles and curves to create unique works of art. The basic cow form is also benign so that it can be altered, transformed, and morphed into completely other animals, people or objects. Incredibly, over 2500 hundred Cows have been created worldwide, but no two are alike.
The cows are painted by local artists from the amateur and unknown to the professional and famous. The artists are notified of the event through an “Open Call to Artists” process. This process consists of a targeted mailing to top artists, newspapers and television ads, and through cooperation with local arts organizations. The event maintains a portfolio of the design submissions from which event sponsors select.
