Despite some serious misgivings regarding the transparency and cost of the project, Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro is determined to push ahead with his public sculpture initiative, Arte Publico.
This week, he inaugurated the program’s second piece on Calzada Federalismo, at the intersection with Calle Hospital. “Sincretismo” by Ismael Vargas is a fusion of the images of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue and the Catholic Virgin of Guadalupe, set in a nine-meter-high brass sculpture created in the semblance of papel picado (the folk art of tissue paper cut into decorative designs). The cost of the work is estimated at 5.2 million pesos (US$292,000).
The high cost is not the only controversial aspect to the work. An internet petition on CitizenGO has accumulated more than 10,000 signatures demanding the statue be taken down as it is an offense to the Virgin of Guadalupe, considered by Catholics as the “mother of Mexico.”
A new location is being sought for Jose Fors’ “Arbol Adentro,” the next urban sculpture scheduled for installation. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología y History (INAH) recently ruled that it could not be installed in the city center’s Jardin Aranzazu.