Something about CowParade
From June till September 2004 onwards Prague became the venue for a unique world-wide open-air project entitled CowParade. Two hundred life-sized coloured sculptures of cows, created by both established and unknown Czech artists, were situated in the places most frequented by tourists throughout the city centre.
On my opinion were situated not only in most frequently places then the city centre is...
I couldn�t miss this exhibition so I was walking throw the city to catch all of cows. It is another type of my collectors obsession. Neverending walking costed a lot of blood blisters but the effect is great.
You can see all of my photos here.
I had a chance to see place where cows had been carried together on the end of the exhibition. Now I can show you some pictures of this place.
See more photos of this place.
What were cows good for?
As well as gracing open spaces, increasing tourism, and supporting local artists, who have the chance to participate in the exhibition, the event earned money for children's charity projects by means of a final auction in October 2004. For instance the Krtek Foundation, which operates in the Oncology Institution in Brno, helped to acquire an essential investigation appliance.
Registered authors creating designs from which the sponsors and owners of cows choose. Authors of chosen designs then create the cows according to them. That means that each cow or heard have its sponsor or owner, which could be any natural person or legal entity.
The sponsoring fee for one cow was Czech crowns 195 thousand, in case of purchase it was Czech crowns 245 thousand. While sponsored cows were publicly auctioned at the end of exhibition, which was patronised by international auction house Sotheby's, purchased sculptures remained with their owners. In these days is still possible to see some of cows in a few places in Prague city.
The creation of an EU Cow Herd, within CowParade Prague 2004 resulted from a meeting between the Netherlands Ambassador in Prague, Ida van Veldhuizen, and one of the co-organisers of CowParade Prague, Bessel Kok.
The organisers of CowParade Prague 2004 donated 26 cows, and under the supervision of the 24 EU Ambassadors in Prague, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the acting Head of the Representation of the EU Commission, these cows were painted to represent each one of the 25 Member States as well as the Commission. The artists were chosen by each Embassy, by the Ministry and by the Commission representation. Some artists were Czech, whilst others were artists from the Member States. A number of cows were painted by students of the international schools in Prague. One of the aims of this project is to bring the enlarged EU closer to it's citizens.
The concept of the CowParade came into being in 1998 in Zurich and over the following years has been held very successfully in eighteen capitals of the world, e.g. Chicago, New York, Sydney, Houston, London and Brussels. Along with Prague, in year 2004 the CowParade visited Stockholm, Manchester and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.
Schedule of the exhibition:
- 2008 - Capri
- 2008 - San Jose, Costa Rica
- 2007 - Marseille, France
- 2007 - Copenhagen, Denmark
- 2007 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 2007 - Milano, Italy
- 2007 - West Hartford, Connecticut, USA
- 2006 - Athens, Greece
- 2006 - Paris, France
- 2006 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 2006 - Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2006 - Boston, USA
- 2006 - Denver, USA
- 2006 - Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- 2006 - Wisconsin, USA
- 2006 - Lisboa, Portugal
- 2006 - Telemark, Norway
- 2005 - Moscow, Russia
- 2005 - Monaco
- 2005 - Mexico
- 2005 - Bratislava, Slovakia
- 2005 - Firenze, Italy
- 2005 - Warsaw, Poland
- 2005 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
- 2005 - Barcelona, Spain
- 2005 - Bucharest, Romania
- 2005 - Geneva, Switzerland
- 2004/2005 - Cape Town, South Africa
- 2004 - Prague, Czech Republic
- 2004 - Manchester, England
- 2004 - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- 2004 - Stockholm, Sweden
- 2003 - West Hartford, Connecticut
- 2003 - Auckland, New Zealand
- 2003 - Isle of Man, United Kingdom
- 2003 - Atlanta, Georgia
- 2003 - Dublin, Ireland
- 2002 - West Orange, New Jersey
- 2002 - London, England
- 2002 - Ventspils, Latvia
- 2002 - Las Vegas, Nevada
- 2002 - San Antonio, Texas
- 2001 - Kansas City, Missouri
- 2001 - Houston, Texas
- 2000 - New York, New York
- 2000 - Stamford, Connecticut
- Brussels, Belgium
- Portland, Oregon
- Sydney, Australia
- Tokyo, Japan