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Portrait of a sculptor

Index

MAD COW DISEASE

A sculpture to denounce the EU’s ‘madness of subsidies’

The sculpture was launched during the Global Week of Action, April 2005. It was set up on the Town Hall sq. of Copenhagen to highlight the campaign for fair trade.

This peculiar piece of art consists of a pair of scales, 8 metres high. On one arm hangs a dead cow by its legs, on the other a number of Africans (in copper). The sculpture will point up the grotesque fact that each cow in the EU receives a subvention of 800 US dollars to block the poor countries from selling their products on the European market.

WTO Summit in Hong Kong, December 2005

Mad Cow Disease had come to Hong Kong together with Survival of the Fattest and The Hunger March to pinpoint the inequitable world trade.

The sculptures were met with an endless series of obstruction from the manager of Victoria Park. After days of tug-of-war Jens Galschiot succeeded to set up his sculptures in the park. Perhaps the sculptor’s threat to file a lawsuit against the authorities through the renowned Hong Kong lawyer Albert Ho was decisive.