An A-moo-sing affair

I was over in Edinburgh one weekend to visit the so-it-seems biggest public art exhibition, CowParade. As its amusing name suggests, CowParade is an exhibition of life-size cows made of fibreglass, meticulously designed and decorated by various artists. The event first took place in Zurich in 1998 but due to its encouraging success, went on to travel round the globe to places as far as Chicago, Auckland, Tokyo and Moscow. Last year itself, the parade was hosted at nine separate locations throughout Europe. Fascinatingly, I came across this event 4 years ago while making a short stop in Brussels and again last year (in Monaco), while I was touring through Southern France.

The CowParade combines both art and charity, with corporate organisations and business companies commisioning artists to design the cows they sponsor for the event. The cow designs usually take on a theme, which are either painted on directly or presented as collage or metal work (some ornamented with various accessories, e.g. hats, chains and clothes). The beauty of the event not only lies in the sparkling creativity delivered by each cow design(I know it doesn't sound too impressive at the moment but wait till you see the photos below!), accompanied by witty names adapted from world renown references.

94 cows were erected all over Edinburgh city centre with some located slightly out of the city. I was told that each CowParade adopts the art and culture of the host city, displaying designs created by local/foreign artists. Unfortunately, time and weather did not permit me to explore all 94 statues but here are some of my favourites...




Thistle Be the Cow in Edinburgh - showing designs of the thistle, the prickly-leaved purple national flower of Scotland.

Nightmoo at Blair Street - guess the reference, anybody?

Festival Cow - stood on stilts in front of the Edinburgh City Chambers, a symbol of the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Top 3 favourite cow designs:-

1) Robocow - I just love the fiesty red eyes, horns and hoofs!

2) Jones Lang LaFriesian - I'm a huge fan of the original painter of this cow design (The Singing Butler by Jack Vettriano, who incidentally is a fellow Scot!)

3) Brave Moo - if there was ever a competition for the best cow design, this will definitely be the top of my list of nominations. What could be more Scottish than a bovine version of William Wallace? How utterly impressive!

Apparently, there was also Cowzan, the cow version of Tarzan, and Moo-ball, painted like a football in conjunction with the World Cup fever.

The story doesn't end here. It seems, at the end of each exhibition, a number of cows are auctioned and the proceeds are channeled to various charitable organisations. It has been reported that, till date, CowParade from around the globe have raised over £9 million.

I thoroughly enjoyed the art display, though I wished it was held in Glasgow instead. It would have been great lunching or shopping alongside a cow every other day till the end of the exhibition. For those who are keen on finding out more about this unique display of art, visit the official websites http://www.cowparade-edinburgh.co.uk/ or http://www.cowparade-eu.com/.

....hmmmm....will the event ever set foot in Malaysia? I'd sure love to see a cow in batik sarong.