What's that blue rooster at the Sculpture garden? One of two statues made by Katharina Fritsch

By IASP. 

I cannot start liking the blue rooster next to the Walker Art Center. Take it as my apology, Minnesota. Yes, you know which one, the ultramarine cock-a-doodle-doo next to the giant cherry on a spoon. I swear I’ve tried to like it. I keep closing my eyes praying to wake up loving its awful blueberryness next day but nothing yet. I mean there is nothing bad with the sculpture itself as the male chicken looks healthy and attractive, but then, more I learn about the sky-blue bird, more I hate it.

The story of our beloved Katharina Fritsch’s blue “cockerel” doesn’t start in Minneapolis. This journey involves three countries, two identical sculptures, a feminist German artist, and the current primer minister of the U.K., being a cunt (or a dick). Does it sound like a James Bond’s plot to you?

The 14-foot-tall sculpture was commissioned to fill London’s Trafalgar Square. Katharina Fritsch scanned the remains of a death rooster to make a 3D print to be reproduced in a Jurassic scale. She is known for working with iconography to reinvigorate familiar objects. I actually like her work in general as it feels refreshing.

Katharina Fritsch calls the blue rooster a feminist sculpture, but I only read mixed words and a weak message, if any. The artists claims that her work is a parody to the 19th-century practice of commemorating male warriors. But these animals are associated with strength. Katharina’s cock looks healthy and energetic. “A giant bright-blue cock – its feathers proudly upstanding, its coxcomb as stiff as a pennant in the breeze – has been erected in Trafalgar Square,” as was brilliantly described by Charlotte Higgins. Is it really an irony against these male generals erected as well in London? I don’t think so.

For instance, the artist seemed unaware that the rooster was the national emblem of France and the employed color (ultramarine) is also a traditional French color. To display these two symbols in a square that actually commemorates the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, one of the most important victories against Napoleon, is in the words of the Thorney Island Society “totally inappropriate,” a British slung for “your shit is offensive.”

The unveiling of the sculpture deserves some words. To just picture hundreds of people gathered in Trafalgar Square to see Katharina’s artwork is nothing but awkward. The Mayor Boris Johnson did not only lead the inauguration, but came prepared with dozens of jokes about dicks and cocks to entertain a confused crowd -many more than the ones that I used in the first paragraph. I personally dislike Boris Johnson and hate the idea that he was given a tribune to perform a decadent stand-up comedy show, especially before becoming Prime Minister himself: “I think if you tried to Google it in the future,” referring to David Cameron’s proposals to have internet pornography blocked, “the Prime Minister would stop you from finding it.”

But besides these also totally inappropriate dick jokes of Boris Johnson, there is a legit feminist message with the sculpture. Katherine portraits her work as such:

“It is a feminist sculpture, since it is I who am doing something active here – I, a woman, am depicting something male. Historically I has always been the other way around. Now we are changing the roles. And a lot of men are enjoying that.”

However, the British sculpture finished at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., which means that the Hahn/Cock lost all the meaning of being originally placed in Trafalgar Square or even in the United Kingdom. No meaning remains. It’s just a visiting giant cockerel with funny British accent. There is not much to say as well about the second sculpture given to our city, but to acknowledge that it makes a wonderful background for an Instagram selfie. We deserve better than two cocks without a home.