this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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Sergio Furnari said he thought the lifesize sculpture – which no one commissioned – would raise ‘millions’ of dollars

To add injury to insult, Furnari recently broke his foot working on the statue, after tripping over a roll of tape in his studio.

“Is it cursed? Maybe. I don’t know,” he told the Guardian.

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[–] lemmelemmy@feddit.org 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

So grifter is furious that he couldn’t monetise far right? Fucking good riddance then. Not because I’m saying this to defend those cretins. Making this persons statue is basically means he’s trying to immortalise his existence means his views too. If you don’t like him why make a fucking statue? What sort of brain dead idea is this? He could have donated that money to a charity instead trying to make easy bucks.

[–] L7HM77@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

With or without ^~~gang violence~~^ the neck hole?

Hm.

If I turn it into a fountain, does the value of the statue increase or decrease?

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 300 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My favorite comment on this statue, Charlie Kirk has become what he hates most, a person of color.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago

It looks like Russell Peters.

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 173 points 1 week ago (7 children)

People are cheap, man

Or people don't like nazis, it's a mystery!

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 98 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's so funny to see a grifter crash out like that. Ah we need more of this. Legit thinking of edging grifters into unsustainable businesses might be the highest return meme of this decade.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I heard the main reason people didn't want to buy this is that it doesn't adequately reflect Charlie Kirk's towering stature in the world. If he made a 100-foot-high version in gold, Elon Musk told me he'd personally pay billions for it.

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[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's also just objectively a horrible statue. The body proportions are just awful. You can tell he's spent 90 percent of his time and effort on the head and just draped the body in baggy clothing to hide his work.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Hey, give the man a break. It may be a terrible, ugly sculpture of a nasty, hateful man but he only wants a few million dollars for it. It probably took him days to make!

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[–] spectrums_coherence@piefed.social 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think what he meant is nazis are cheap.

The rich ones can spend money on elections that buys them power, but they absolutely will not waste their money on statues.

Other nazis are really really cheap.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The ones with money know Charlie was a pawn and isn't useful to them anymore.

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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"People are cheap" is something you say when someone tries to haggle a 90% discount on your like-new dresser that you listed for an already cheap $40 on craigslist. It is not something you say when someone fails to buy your statue of a person who was human garbage, made out of actual garbage, for 1000% return on your already bullshit overinflated supposed cost of 100k for like $200 in materials and your (apparently) very precious time and effort. You're cheap dude, and an idiot. Get a commission first and make an actual sculpture out of actual sculpting materials (clay, stone, metal, even fucking plaster) instead of spray painting a cotton t shirt and some Levi's, dude. Your time is worthless when this is the outcome.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 95 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is the funniest article:

In desperation, Furnari set up an online fundraising campaign, hoping to raise an initial $150,000, but potentially millions of dollars, which he said would allow him to take the statue on tour. As of Thursday, he had raised $1,400.

And then he goes on:

“Things financially are a total, absolute nightmare. It’s like wow. 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.”

He also compares himself to Michelangelo

[–] DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works 53 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe he meant Michaelangelo the ninja turtle.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

DON'T YOU DARE BESMIRCH MICHAELANGELO'S PARTY DUDE NAME!!!

[–] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

I mean... cowabunga, my dude

[–] celeste@kbin.earth 87 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Too much time has passed for him to make money on the Kirk grift. Gotta ride that corpse before everyone else riding it wears it down to dust.

Maybe he's hoping this article will get enough people making fun of him that our disrespect will catch the right's attention and paying him millions will be owning the libs. There might be money in that grift, still.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 34 points 1 week ago

Yeah, Erika beat everyone to that.

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 73 points 1 week ago (1 children)

, but man, people are strange out there,” he said.

Errr...we didn't spend 100k on an ugly statue of a racist piece of shit. So who's the strange one here?

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Maybe if he sold tickets to shoot at it?

"Try to hit Charlie" 25 dollars / shot at 100m.

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[–] Codpiece@feddit.uk 54 points 1 week ago (5 children)
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[–] MushuChupacabra@piefed.world 52 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sounds like an oversupply problem.

Did they not check what the demand for fugly Charlie Kirk statues was prior to starting?

[–] LittleBorat3@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It was manufactured outrage over some podcaster who got shot. It's not surprising that there are no buyers, they never cared.

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[–] scrion@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There is no way that this thing consumed material worth $100k. It's a steel wire frame with an outer shell coated in resin, and spray painted.

This grifter is trying to leverage the coverage and hopes to raise some money by artificially inflating the price beforehand so that piece of crap is deemed to be worth anything.

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He said the cost is for steel, resin and labor. Two of those are cheap.

In other words the $100k is expected profit from his time spent working on it.

"I value my time at 20k an hour. This took all afternoon."

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It was $1000 for the materials and the rest was the hospital bill for the broken foot

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[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

“Things financially are a total, absolute nightmare. It’s like wow. 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.”

The whole article is filled with gems like this and the exact right length for this sort of human interest piece about someone who is just trash.

During a cost of living crisis this guy drops 100k+ on something no one asked for and complains that people are cheap.

I get that people do own statues, but who exactly did he think was going to buy this? Anyone stupid enough to like this either in content or execution is too stupid to have the money to spend on it. Anyone rich enough to afford it could spend their money on things they actually like and don't just pretend to. Not that intelligence and wealth appear to have anything to do with each other at this point, but this guy clearly doesn't understand the way things work.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

He must be true MAGA, since he instantly blames everyone else for his own idiotic life decisions. I bet he spends the rest of his time preaching to people about responsibility.

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago

Alternate title "racist moron wastes 100,000 dumping trash in times square"

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Man discovers that the attention span in the modern world is measured in minutes, not years.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

His previous works included a statue of the Hawk Tuah girl and a large labubu doll. Both still available.

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Shoulda made it a fountain, woulda sold in a hot minute.

Edit oh HELL NO "far right activist"?? What's the matter, did shit flinging troglodyte have too many syllables ?

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[–] El_Scapacabra@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Create a problem in the stupidest way possible. Blame everyone but yourself.

The MAGA playbook.

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[–] FE80@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (6 children)

A New York sculptor has been left furious after spending $100,000 of his own money to build a lifesize statue of Charlie Kirk, only to find that no one wants to buy it.

What sculptor has 100k of their own money?

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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

100k? That cost 100k? The likeness is not bad (which is not helping the appeal), but just speaking artistically nothing else about that statue is even acceptable, particularly for 100k.

It looks like a pole frame with newspaper padding for the body, an actual t shirt and jeans drapped over that body that has so much glue saturated into them to harden them that they look like they are soaking wet, literal stickers for the "FREEDOM" letters on the shirt, an actual microphone prop shoved into a mannequin hand bolted on the end of the arm pole, actual shoes on the feet, multiple colors of metallic spray paint, and a thick clear coat sealant. Like $200-300 dollars in materials for the entire body, tops. How did you spend 100k on this? Did you pay a 100k licensing fee for use of his likeness or something? This feels like a tax write-off scam or something. What a fucking waste of money, regardless.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 19 points 1 week ago

It isn't a good likeness. The face is way too big.

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[–] anarchy79@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)
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[–] loaf@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 week ago

He could make it into a fountain. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[–] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

he spent $100,000 on steel, resin and labor

So the real cost was probably a few grand in materials, at most, and he’s no doubt saying his time is worth $1000/hour or more.

It was a grift all along, especially wanting to display it in a place that just elected a “democratic socialist” mayor, one of the biggest Democrat strongholds.

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[–] the_xboxkiller@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Until then, Furnari is left with a 6ft 4in statue of a renowned racist, which he has spent $100,000 making, and which no one wants to buy.

The shade lmfao

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[–] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 28 points 1 week ago

If they make it like one of those virgin mary miracle statues where it shoots blood out its neck once a day this shit will sell in a second.

[–] grumpo_potamus@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (3 children)

We're probably going to end up buying this thing with our tax dollars aren't we?

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[–] raspirate@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Wherever this thing ends up, it will be begging for the most obvious bit of vandalism ever. One little hole turns it from a "touching tribute" into a real-life kirkpost.

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[–] Ariselas@piefed.ca 17 points 1 week ago

Maybe he'll get more interest if he drills a hole in it's neck and turns it into a fountain.

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