Resurrecting the Ghost of The Mexican Grizzly Bear: NeverCrew In Phoenix

BSA is pleased that we were able to help bring NeverCrew to the US along with FatCap to realize this huge Mexican Grizzly on a celebrated wall in Arizona.

“El Oso Plateado and the Machine” is the latest project of Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni here in Phoenix on the side of the historic Heard Building, a 7-story high-rise building that housed the offices of The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette from 1920 to 1948 and was the first high-rise building to be erected in Phoenix when it was completed in 1920.

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

As usual the Swiss artist duo have used one of their murals to give center stage to nature and it is inextricably bound to man’s folly, as this incredible bear from this region is now extinct.

Sort of silvery because of the color of its fur, the Mexican Grizzly was one of the heaviest and largest mammals in Mexico, reaching a length up to 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in) and an average weight of 318 kilograms (701 lb).

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

Appropriately, the Mexican Grizzly was once here in Arizona, because this land actually was Mexico’s before the Americans declared war to steal the land that would become California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming in the 1840s-50s in what General (and later US President) Ulysses S. Grant called “the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one.” So perhaps it would be called now the Arizonian Grizzly, if it still existed.

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

NeverCrew “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

An indoor mural by NeverCrew in connection with “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

An indoor mural by NeverCrew in connection with “El oso plateado and the machine” Phoenix, AZ (photo courtesy of NeverCrew)

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