A New York sculptor who claims he spent over $100k to create a slightly larger-than-life-size statue of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is both surprised and “furious” that no one has stepped forwardto meet his asking price of $150,000 — down from the millions he’d expected.
Sergio Furnari, an Italian-born artist, constructed the elaborate memorial to the far-right activist who was killed at a Utah college last September, the Guardian reported. The statue depicts Kirk clutching a microphone, his shirt emblazoned with the word “Freedom”—meant to capture his likeness at the moment of his death.
The artwork is expected to make its public debut in New York City’s Times Square on Sept. 10 — the anniversary of the shooting.
Furnari had high expectations, thinking wealthy conservatives would come forward to donate substantial sums, transforming his $100,000 investment in steel, resin, and labor into a windfall of cash while he took the statue on a national tour. Instead, the project has become a financial and personal disaster, he told The Guardian.
His fundraising campaign has netted just $7,660. Social media responses have been uniformly hostile, with critics threatening to urinate on the sculpture. And Furnari broke his foot while working on the statue by tripping over a roll of tape in his studio, the report noted.
“Is it cursed? Maybe. I don’t know,” Furnari told the Guardian.
During his interview, he candidly admitted he isn’t actually a Kirk supporter, objected to the conservative’s position on Palestine and went as far as to describe Kirk as “out of his mind” on certain issues. Yet he still invested six figures creating a monument to him, ostensibly to “glorify and exercise the First Amendment” and support Kirk’s widow.
“Things financially are a total, absolute nightmare,” Furnari lamented. “People are cheap, man. You know, people talk, talk—I know lots of people out there, and everybody’s so cheap. You know, like, it’s disgusting how cheap they are.”
Despite his predicament and broken foot, Furnari maintains the statue isn’t cursed—merely “blessed.”
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