Gillie and Marc Challenge the Species Bronze Ceiling

Story and Photographs by Jennifer Harris

British-Australian artists, Gillie and Marc, have joined forces with “Sesame Street” in New York City. They warn us again about human-induced global peril. Their environmental messages are that animals have worth in themselves and kindness and empathy are most powerful when they emerge from opposites.

Gillie and Marc’s installation in Madison Avenue runs until March 2027 and offers a new look at the “bronze ceiling”—the concept that mostly white males are depicted in monumental bronze whereas everyone else, and every species, need to break through to achieve that epic grandeur. Gillie and Marc’ s new work is particularly poignant because their usual realist art now embraces much-loved fantasy characters from “Sesame Street” who thus also challenge the bronze ceiling. Elephant, Elmo, Big Bird and friends critique our views of monuments and inherent animal worth…or lack of worth.

The bronzes are on view in the all-weather courtyard of 590 Madison Avenue (at 56th Street) in Midtown where there is also a small café making for a comfortable family visit.

PIC: Elmo and African Elephant enjoy box juices.

Gillie and Marc are among the most represented public artists in New York. Their work is also in another 250 cities, constantly stating their urgent environmental message. The critical need for humans to protect threatened species is inherent in the tender sculpting of animals that we know struggle daily to survive human brutality and loss of territory. The gentleness of the message is expressed in the delicate tip of an elephant’s trunk and the interactive nature of the art. Children and whole families are encouraged to climb over the great bronzes and immerse themselves in an animal world—to feel paw and claw, to let their human hands ripple over thick fur, to find footholds on burnished ears.

PIC: Cookie Monster and Rhino

Gillie and Marc are the embodiment of their message that difference can lead to togetherness. Their whirlwind romance is legendary. They met in 1990 in Hong Kong on a photo shoot. Australian Marc was the creative director and British Gillie a model. A week later they married in Nepal.

Marc is a trained artist and Gillie is not. Marc grew up in Australia while Gillie spent much of her childhood in Zambia, experiencing ever more intense compassion for endangered species. The two artists use difference as a source of collaborative, visionary energy leading to some of the world’s most touching—and touchable—public art.

Decades after the Hong Kong shoot, their creativity and love flourish. They frequently represent themselves as Paparazzi Dogman and Paparazzi Rabbitwoman who wait with their cameras to record inequality and unkindness. If you are passing down the extension of the delightfully-named Avenue 6 ½ in Midtown you might find that a courtyard is open and they are waiting for you (142 W 49th Street). Sometimes Dogman works as a paparazzo without Rabbitwoman as he does at the Rockefeller Center in a block long lobby.

PIC Paparazzi Dogman and Paparazzi Rabbitwoman

Gillie and Marc’s eco-commitment extends to the way they create their art; they do not use copious buckets of clay but work first in 3D online modeling. Although they focus on animals, their message is a broader environmental call to action.

Not only have they worked on environmental justice, but they have also brought to the attention of New Yorkers the near absence of women in bronze. In 2019 they exhibited “Statues for Equality” on 6th Avenue with bronzes of Cate Blanchett, Gabby Douglas, Tracy Dyson, Jane Goodall, Nicole Kidman, Janet Mock, Pink, Cheryl Strayed, Tererai Trent and Oprah Winfrey.

“Statues for Equality” was a gender-equality shake up for the city, but animals are the artists’ signature subjects. In Lower Manhattan at 140 Broadway (corner of Cedar Street) the monumental “Wild Table of Love” can be enjoyed until August 2027. There is room at this unique table for you to sit in the presence of magnificent, endangered animals in bronze, although you will be competing with passers-by who are enchanted by the radical change to the streetscape.

Let’s assume you manage to squeeze in…by sitting with Lion, Giraffe, Koala, Zebra, Chimp and friends you place yourself physically and imaginatively inside their stories of loss and possible fragile recovery, in a special non-human encounter.

PIC: “The Wild Table of Love”

Animals have previously broken through the monumental bronze ceiling almost entirely in terms of war service. There are notable exceptions, for example, “Greyfriars Bobby” (1872 ) here who was faithful even after the death of his owner. In Sydney, “Horses of the Desert Mounted Corps” (1950) are remembered in the Royal Botanic Gardens here.

In London, “The Animals in War Memorial” (2004) remembers all animals in war and can be seen here. Likewise, in France the “Australian War Animals Memorial” (2017) in Pozières commemorates the multitude of animals who have been in violent conflict and here you see the memorial.

In all these cases, animals were memorialized mostly because they were useful to humans or displayed traits we admire, traits we usually associate with humans, not animals. Of course, there has often been love between humans and animals, and humans have witnessed numerous cases of animal bravery, but they have not been the reasons for the creation of previous monuments.

The key difference in Gillie and Marc’s work is that their art highlights the worth of the animals’ own existence to themselves, and only secondarily to us. The artists provoke us to contemplate the tenuous existence of wild animals in our overcrowded world where territories are often reduced to strips, and poachers—driven by poverty—lurk. A gorilla no longer seems menacing; we realize acute danger is posed by us. In this world, a gorilla does not need to thwart an advancing human enemy and, thereby, be useful to humans. Gillie and Marc remind us that we must understand that all animals have dignity and rights in themselves, quite separate from any virtues or uses that humans might invent.