Don’t bring a banjo to a bullfight.
A Texas truck driver was arrested for attacking the “Charging Bull” statue in New York’s financial district with a banjo on Saturday, and charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct after leaving the Wall Street icon with a gash on its right horn.
A video taken by tourism-industry worker Shandu Marks and shared with the New York Post (which shares ownership with MarketWatch) shows a man identified as 42-year-old Tevon Varlac calling the 3.5-ton bronze bovine “the devil” as he whacks it with the string instrument, which appears to have been reinforced with steel.
“I’m at the bull every day,” said Marks, who recorded the bizarre incident with his cellphone camera, reporting that he has in the past seen people kiss and fondle the statue and otherwise interact with it in questionable ways. “But I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that.”
Varlack, in the video, is seen pacing back and forth near the sculpture with a trumpet and what appears to be an animal horn while “talking a whole bunch of holy stuff,” according to Marks’s account. He repeatedly strikes the sculpture with the banjo, with each impact resonating as a dull clang. It’s estimated that he caused $10,000 to $15,000 in damage to the bull, crafted by Italian artist Arturo Di Modica in 1989. (Check out the New York Post video here.)
Related: Wall Street’s famed bronze bull arrived 25 years ago (without permission)
Varlack was released without bail and ordered to “stay away from the landmarks in this city,” the Post reported. Prosecutors said during his arraignment that he admitted, “I did it.” And while there has been some debate about whether the instrument-turned-weapon was actually a banjo, or a banjo-shaped implement of another type, Varlack told prosecutors that it was, in fact, a banjo, stating: “The banjo, the trumpet and the speakers are mine.” He is due back in court on Oct. 16.
This is not the first time that the “Charging Bull” statue has been vandalized. It and the “Fearless Girl” statue (which was placed in front of the bull at the time) were splashed with blue paint by anti-climate-change activists in 2017. It was also splattered with blue paint in 2008. And it was “yarn bombed” in 2010 by an artist who crocheted pink and purple yarn all over it.
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