The creator of the “Fearless Girl” sculpture wants to spread her message far and wide. A lawsuit stands in the way

(CNN) — Five years after first appearing on the cobblestone street off Wall Street, the “Fearless Girl” statue, a small but controversial symbol of gender equality, takes on a new digital form.

To mark International Women’s Day next month, the artist behind the bronze figure, Kristen Visbal, will launch a NFT collection with the already famous work. The virtual artworks up for sale include two different videos of the statue taking shape through “stardust particles” and seven celestial-themed digital cards. One of the buyers will also receive a life-size physical replica of the five-foot-tall sculpture, while others will receive 22-inch versions.

Delaware-based Visbal, who often works with cast bronze, collaborated with visual effects studio 9ifx to bring his collection of NFTs to life. His new digital art was inspired by images of nebula clouds taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

“The focus was turned on,” he said in a video interview. “I thought, ‘Oh, ‘Fearless Girl’ is a worldwide symbol. And then I thought, ‘Oh, ‘Fearless Girl’ is a universal symbol.'”

But while the statue has become a well-known tourist attraction, its status as a feminist symbol has been called into question as it was financed through corporate sponsorship. The artwork is also in the midst of litigation between Visbal and the statue’s sponsor, asset management firm State Street Global Advisor (SSGA), over the use of her image and name.

Therefore, the launch of Visbal’s new NFT collection, titled “Superstar Drop: Free Fearless Girl” is likely to spark further debate, as the proceeds from the sale will help fund Visbal’s legal fees.

a shadowy message

“Fearless Girl” was first installed in midtown Manhattan, in front of the famous “Charging Bull” statue, ahead of International Women’s Day in 2017. It was created as a direct challenge to the world’s “boys club.” corporate, Visbal said.

Placed directly on the road, instead of a plinth, to make it the same height as the young visitors, the determined statue immediately went viral. Tweets about the bronze sculpture got 1 billion impressions in the first 12 hours, according to court documents. The statue has since found its new home a few blocks away, across from the New York Stock Exchange, and the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission recently voted to keep it there for another three years.

“Fearless Girl” was intended to “draw attention to the glass ceiling in the Wall Street community that so many women have faced … to move up and to get equal pay,” Visbal said. “It was a very clear and simple message.”

But that message has been somewhat clouded by criticism that the statue was used for public relations by the company SSGA, which at the time promoted its gender diversity index fund. The week after the “Fearless Girl” statue was installed, a opinion piece in The New York Times newspaper he stated that the figure represented a form of “false feminism”.

Ironically, just a few months after it was installed, SSGA agreed to pay $5 million to settle the accusations that it underpaid its female and black employees. In an email to CNN, a company spokesman said the company denies any wrongdoing.

“In the interest of moving forward and continuing to focus on what was most important to State Street (SSGA), the policies and programs that we had and continue to have to promote gender diversity, we chose to reach a settlement agreement,” the statement says.

The fight for “Fearless Girl”

Visbal is frustrated that the statue’s ideals have “been downplayed,” she said, maintaining that she created “Fearless Girl” for the public, not corporate sponsors. “She legally advocates for equality, equal pay, support for women in leadership positions, women’s empowerment, women’s education, bias prevention education, and the general well-being of women,” she said.

“We established the legal limits of what the work of art would represent … (it) would never be used for anything that did not have to do with these ideals of diversity and equality,” he added of the agreement he signed with the SSGA.

Visbal says that he did not know who was sponsoring the project when he accepted the commission from an advertising agency, McCann. He made “Fearless Girl” in about a month and then, weeks after it was installed, he signed an agreement with the SSGA that established the copyright and trademark for the work.

The artist has been involved in a years-long legal battle with the company over the use of “Fearless Girl.” Visbal owns the copyright, which means she can reproduce the work, but SSGA owns the rights to the registered name. When Visbal began marketing replicas under the name “Fearless Girl,” she has sold life-size versions for up to $250,000, SSGA argued she had violated their agreement.

In the court documents Filed before the New York Supreme Court in 2019, SSGA alleged that Visbal had created “unauthorized” copies and that some purchasers had subsequently used the image and name of the statue for commercial gain, “thus weakening and adulterating the message of Fearless Girl”. Visbal responded with a counterclaim, stating that he has the right to make new versions of the work.

“The lawsuit concerns how ‘Fearless Girl’ is used,” Visbal said. “I’m the owner of ‘Fearless Girl,’ so I can make it in whatever size and material I want. I can create derivative works and I can also license the work. The reason I haven’t licensed it is because there’s a lot of control that has gone into exerted on the licences”.

A troubled legacy

Visbal says that without owning the name, she cannot run educational programs related to “Fearless Girl.”

“I wanted her to be, essentially, a teaching tool… I really believe that the fastest path to gender parity is to start resocializing our young people,” Visbal said.

Meanwhile, the SSGA has used the name for its own “Fearless Girl” campaign, which aims to improve diversity and increase the number of women on company boards, according to the lawsuit. The SSGA website says that since the campaign began in 2017, the firm has identified 1,486 companies without a woman on their board of directors, of which 862 now have a female director.

SSGA declined CNN’s request to comment on the legal proceedings or Visbal’s upcoming sale of NFTs, but said the artist had not approached the company for educational initiatives.

“We would consider any request to use the name ‘Fearless Girl’ in connection with educational programs as we would any other request to use the mark,” SSGA said in a statement.

Visbal said that he is allowed to use the registered name in his NFT collection “Superstar Drop: Free Fearless Girl”, through the legal doctrine of “fair use”. She hopes the sale of her will help recover some of her legal fees, which she says total nearly $3 million so far, including about $700,000 of her own money.

“Do I have the option to make big profits from ‘Fearless Girl’? Yes, I do,” Visbal said. “Have I put every damn penny I made into legal fees? Yes, I have.”

Visbal said he has offered to create a new version of the statue so that it can become a permanent fixture in the city (the original work is still on display with a temporary permit). He also wants a plaque placed at the girl’s feet to explain the ideals he had in mind when he created her. The artist is dissatisfied with the current signage, which she says associates “Fearless Girl” too closely with the SSGA’s diversity initiative.

“This is my work, and I did it with integrity, and I have integrity,” Visbal said. “And I would like it to be used correctly.”