Cow Parade – The Famous Art Cows

Cow Parade – The Famous Art Cows

The Cow Parade

The Cow Parade is the famous and one of the biggest public art event hold in the world. The Cow Parade events have been in over 50 cities all over the world since the start in 1999, including cities: Chicago (1999), New York City (2000), London (2002), Tokyo (2003) Bruges (2003). Dublin (2003), Prague (2004), Stockholm (2004), Mexico City (2005), Sao Paulo (2005), Buenos Aires (2006), Boston (2006) Paris (2006), Milan (2007), and Istanbul ( 2007).

Some facts on the crazy cow parade:
* Over 100 million people all around the world have seen these famous cow parade.
* Over $ 20 million is given to charity by selling the cows after the parade. When the cow parade leaves a city the cow is on auction and all profit goes to charity!
* Over 6000 different artist and students worked on the Cow Parade, including professionals, famous, upcoming, young and old!

Why Cows? And not another animal

Why would you use a cow as an inspiration for an art event, many people ask. This question is easy to be answered, everybody loves a cow! The cow means many things for different people around the world. For some cultures the cow is a holy animal, some say it is a link to our past, but mostly everybody feels compassion when they see a cow. There is something magic about this special animal. The cow will put a smile on everbody’s face! The shape, flexibility and diversity of the cow makes it a perfect object to be used in art objects. There are three specific shapes of the cow, lying down, standing up and grazing, which gives artists all the interesting corners and angles to create beautiful pieces of art.The shape is also perfect, it is easily transformed in anything you can imagine, that is why it is possible to create 5000 different art objects all inspired by the cow!

Some Facts on the Crazy Cows from the Cow Parade

How many cows are there in one Cowparade?
This differs each parade, the smallest parade up till now is the parade in Auckland with 32 Cows. The biggest is the one in New York city with 450 cows. On average there are 75 till 150 cows in one parade.

During the parade, where can I find the crazy cows?

The cows can be seen pretty much everywhere in the guest city. The streets, the parks, and other public places are all turned in to a museum for the cows. It is always free to see the cows!

Who are the artists?

Cow Parade events are open to all artists in the host city and region. Painters, sculptures, artisans, architects and other creative and artistic individuals are welcome to a draft selection. While the cow sculptures remain the same, each city artists are challenged by the creations of the past events, inspired by the cultural influences and history of their city, and moved to their own interpretation of the cow as an object of art.

How long does a Cow Parade last?

The parade is publicly available around 2 till 4 months. Then there is a live auction, which takes place around 2 till 3 weeks after the public cow parade.