Everything about the Cow Parade
Who and what is Cow Parade?
Life-sized cows made of fibreglass and painted by renowned artists have magically transformed cities in Belgium, The Netherlands, etc and cities such as Zurich, Chicago, New York... etc into a vivid pallet of shapes and colours. The world famous 'Cow Parade' is a genuine cow art event that always takes place in open air.
Due to its large success, these special cows have been manufactured in smaller dimensions and in china ware to be painted according to the original designs, which were already a big hit in various large cities.
A unique product of a unique animal, who in the meantime really blossomed to become a symbol of 'True Art'. All together they are the 'moo-rmy' of a marching-on parade, that is taking over the world. There are 3 dimensions: mini cows, medium cows and large cows.
The history of the Cow Parade
The cow parade originated in Zürich, Switserland in 1998. The intention of it all was to promote art and commerce. The idea came from Walter Knapp, the original organiser of the first Cow Parade event in Zürich. In 1996 he asked his son, Pascal Knapp, who is an artist as well, to design a life-sized cow. It became the walking cow: 2.2 metres long and 1.4 metres high.
Because of the huge success he designed 2 more life-sized models in 1997. The grazing cow is 2 metres long and 1.2 metres high and the laying cow is 2 metres long and 1 metre high. Nowadays, they are the three prototypes, which are used for the new cow parades all over the world.
In Zürich over 800 painted cows were exposed all over the city. It became an enormous success. A success the world of art hadn't known for a very long time. After that other large cities followed suit with their own cow parade, such as Chicago, New York, Bilbao, Luxemburg, Sydney, Las Vegas and Brussels. This year Barcelona and Warschau were up next.
These original cows have been painted by hand:
Cow Parade cows are completely artisanally manufactured, except for the resin sculpture. Every brush stroke needs to be perfect, but still no cows are fully 100% identical. This way, every cow is a unique hand-painted example.
