A los héroes que fuimos, 2007
Site-specific installation for Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Pravia. Pine wood and digital audio equipment. Approx. 335 x 340 x 144 cm
Photo: Piru de la Puente
Just as architecture is underpinned by its condition as a means for the manifestation of power and its will for perpetuity, the repertoire of monumental sculpture also makes use of all available ingredients for the visualization of authority, its media and agents. Every tribute hides a message transcending the event itself, seeking to transform the character to whom the homage is paid into an exemplary model.
Adolfo Manzano creates a connection between the essence of the sculptural monument and children. An ironical transfer of the heroic concept used as an educational model, and those archaizing educational guidelines through which children learn to acknowledge a debt of respect and consideration to their elders.
Raising the rocking horse to the category of public monument, the artist also pays homage to the first stages of knowledge, a time in which the imagination and innocence made everyone feel like real heroes, protagonists of their own lives.
