The Big Pig Gig and Big Pig Gig: Do-Re-Wee were

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

exhibits on display in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, in the summers of 2000 and 2012, respectively. Local artists and schools decorated hundreds of full-sized

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

statues and installed them throughout the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

area. The events were organized by ArtWorks, a community art employment program.

Background

The Big Pig Gig had several origin sources. perhaps one of many projects inspired by

CowParade CowParade is an international public art exhibit that has featured in major world cities. Fiberglass sculptures of cows are decorated by local artists, and distributed over the city centre, in public places such as train stations, important avenu ...

, which had been featured in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

the previous year, but also the work of an anonymous behind the scenes activist who never heard of Cowparade. The public version of the story has Laura Pulfer, a columnist at ''

The Cincinnati Enquirer ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'' is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the ''Enquirer'' is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, alth ...

'', wrote about seven-year-old Alexander Longi's proposal to Mayor

Roxanne Qualls Roxanne Qualls (born March 3, 1953) is currently an Executive Sales Vice President with Sibcy Cline Realtors in Cincinnati OH. She is a former Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, having served from December 1993 to November 1999. She also s ...

for an event similar to the one in Chicago. The idea to build statues of pigs recalled Cincinnati's annual

Flying Pig Marathon The Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon is an annual race run the first Sunday of May in Cincinnati, Ohio. First held in 1999, it is the 3rd-largest first-time marathon in the United States. The marathon had nearly 5000 finishers in 2008, and total ...

and the city's nickname of "Porkopolis". The nickname dates from the mid–19th century, when the Cincinnati

meat packing industry The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally no ...

led the country. The project's

rhyming A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

name was submitted by Joyce Monger and won a naming contest. With the support of ArtWorks and various local businesses and media outlets, the project attracted 425 entries, many of which depicted "

flying pig The phrase "when pigs fly" (alternatively, "pigs might fly") is an adynaton—a figure of speech so hyperbolic that it describes an impossibility. The implication of such a phrase is that the circumstances in question (the adynaton, and the circu ...

s". Hundreds of pigs were installed downtown, while others were stationed across the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

in Newport and

Covington, Kentucky Covington is a list of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in Kenton County, Kentucky, Kenton County, Kentucky, United States, located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Licking River (Kentucky), Licking Rivers. Cincinnati, Ohio, ...

. They stretched north to

Findlay Market Findlay Market in historic Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, Ohio, is the state's oldest continuously operated public market. The Findlay Market Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on June 5, 1972. The market is the la ...

, east to

Eden Park Eden Park is New Zealand's largest sports stadium, with a capacity of 50,000. Located in central Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, it is three kilometres southwest of the CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and King ...

, south to the Covington Cathedral, and west to Union Terminal. Participants included over 50 schools. More than 500,000 visitors brought an estimated $170 million to the city. The exhibit officially began May 14 and ended October 31. A number of these statues have been sold on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

for charity since the event, and many others have come to decorate the Cincinnati airport, local hotels, and other buildings. The following year saw a similar though less publicized event in which large

flower pot A flowerpot, planter, planterette or plant pot, is a container in which flowers and other plants are cultivated and displayed. Historically, and still to a significant extent today, they are made from plain terracotta with no ceramic glaze, wi ...

s were decorated and placed throughout downtown.

Big Pig Gig: Do-Re-Wee

ArtWorks organized a smaller exhibit, which went on display from June to September 2012, to coincide with the World Choir Games. One hundred fiberglass pigs – including a pair joined by a replica

Roebling Suspension Bridge The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge (formerly the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge) is a suspension bridge that spans the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky. When opened on December 1, 1866, it was the longest suspension ...

– were stationed downtown and in

Over-the-Rhine Over-the-Rhine (often abbreviated as OTR) is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Historically, Over-the-Rhine has been a working-class neighborhood. It is among the largest, most intact urban historic districts in the United State ...

References

External links

* Websites about the 2000 event: ** ** ** * Websites about the 2012 event: ** {{Public art in Cincinnati Festivals in Cincinnati 2000 in the United States 2000 sculptures Arts in Cincinnati Outdoor sculptures in Cincinnati Cultural festivals in the United States Fictional pigs Painted statue public art 2000 in Ohio Pigs in art

Background

Big Pig Gig: Do-Re-Wee

See also

References

External links