MEXICO CITY — Fear not the threat of any walls going up between the U.S and Mexico. Jorge Marin’s bronze wings offer a way to soar above the things that would divide the two countries.
It’s a metaphorical rise, of course. Though standing in front of his identical Wings of the City sculptures in Mexico City and Denver, you get the feeling that optimism and fantasy — and a love of selfies — are unstoppable forces uniting the two countries.
Marin’s disembodied wings beg you pose in front of them and feel the freedom of flight. People line up 20 deep at the original version, set along the Mexican capital’s elegant Paseo de la Reforma boulevard. And they have begun doing so in Denver’s Commons Park, where a replica was installed last month amid a display of nine, large-scale works by the artist.
How the posers comport themselves is another commonality. Some thrust their hands in the air like Superman, while others freeze gently and cast a heavenly gaze into the air. A favorite in both countries is the bicep pump, often accompanied by a powerful “Grrrr,” which needs no translation into English or Spanish.
Marin believes the way people interact with the sculpture says a lot about their innermost qualities, their ego or shyness, their religiosity or sense of humor.
“I think people have a reflection about their own self,” he said in a recent interview in his elegant studio in Mexico City’s swank Roma Norte neighborhood. “What Am I? Maybe I am an angel. Or am I a fake angel? Or am I a monster?”
Marin is an art star in his home country. Everyone knows his creations, if not his name, and numerous sculptures are scattered about the city in parks, on plazas and in front of skyscrapers. The Wings are part of a body of work that is otherwise nearly all figurative renderings of meticulously muscled, male bodies, most with wings and many with bird masks.
They are not, he stresses, angels but, rather, humans with wings, and they manifest his belief that mankind is capable of perfection, and that we all crave a sort of liberty that the ability to fly represents.
However, he’s not naive about the way things really are. “The human being has two faces: a very, very great face that produces art, electricity, the possibility to go to the moon; but, on the other hand, we can be beasts or animals, depraved and evil men.
“I prefer to celebrate the face with light. The honorable part.”
He ties his “bird man” objects to centuries of cultural expression. Similar images have been conjured, he notes, by the early Phoenicians and across Europe. The pre-Hispanic Mexican god Quetzalcoatl is often depicted as something of a menace with feathers coming out of his back.
Marin’s sculptures — created through the traditional lost-wax bronze technique — are friendlier and more full of hope, and that has made them popular ambassadors of Mexican culture around the world. The Denver show is temporary, but the Mexico City government has made permanent gifts of Wings replicas to places such as Tel Aviv, Berlin, Los Angeles and Singapore. The wings will soon make appearances in Hong Kong, Bangkok and other locations.
The Commons Park exhibit, which runs through Sept. 30, is a collaborative effort involving several Mexican government agencies and the Mexican Cultural Center. Denver’s Arts & Venues department has pitched in as part of its Imagine 2020 program to integrate the arts fully into civic life. The city’s Parks Department got on board as a way of fulfilling the original mission of Commons Park when it was created 15 years ago to offer the wide, manicured sidewalks surrounding it as a public promenade.
The sculptures fit snugly into the space as if they were custom-made for the job. The invitation to stroll is hard to turn down.
For his part, Marin is pleased that his work helps to introduce contemporary Mexican art to other cultures, although he doesn’t want people to confuse it with propaganda. “It’s important to understand that I produce my own work with my own ideas. It’s absolutely free of the influence of the government,” he said.
But if the government wants to buy it, that’s great, he says. And it has, in a big way lately — commissioning Marin to produce a 10-story-tall bird man sculpture that sits in a highway median just outside of the capital.
He’s also fully aware, like many Mexicans, of the recent American political rhetoric that has been defining the relationship between his country and the U.S. as adversarial and mistrustful. He doesn’t mind having his message of commonalities in the spotlight at this particular moment.
“We are showing another possibility to share and to work together, maybe with a pair of wings and not just words,” he said.
JORGE MARIN’S BRONZE SCULPTURES will be on display at Commons Park through Sept. 30. There is no charge to see them. There is an accompanying mobile app, “Jorge Marin,” available for download. Info at denvergov.org.
