David Benrimon Fine Art is pleased to present a public installation of Fernando Botero’s monumental Sphinx at 14th Street Square, in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation's Art Program and the Meatpacking District Management Association. The installation coincides with the gallery’s Botero exhibition in honor of the artist’s 90th birthday.
Recognized as one of the most successful living artists in the world, Fernando Botero’s monumental sculptures have graced the public squares and main avenues of large metropolises on every continent. From Bogotá to Paris, New York to Hong Kong, Botero’s voluptuous and instantly recognizable sculptures have become ingrained in the public’s memory. Globally exhibited and cherished for over four decades, Botero's astonishing bronzes have transcended their stationary nature to become integral to our understanding of these public spaces.
Inspired by ancient and classical sources, Botero’s monumental works are both modern and legendary. Throughout his career, his interest in mythology acted as a powerful means of conveying ideas through symbols and emblem-laden figures. When Botero started his lifelong pursuit of sculpture in the mid-1970s, he immediately turned to antiquity for sources of inspiration. Much in the way of the great artists of the Italian Baroque, he has treasured ancient sculpture as one of the foundations of Western visual culture. He has created sculptures of Leda and the Swan, Adam and Eve, St. George, Mother & Child, Rapto de Europa, and Venus.
“The Sphinx” is Botero’s interpretation of a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human, common to ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Central Asian mythology. In ancient Egypt, the sphinx is believed to have been seen as a spiritual guardian and was frequently included in imagery of tombs and temple complexes. Generally, sphinxes were depicted as male figures, crowned with pharaonic headdresses (as is the Great Sphinx) but likenesses with female features, such as the example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also exist. Arguably the best-known sphinx of antiquity is the Great Sphinx at Giza, likely built between 2558-2532 BCE during the 4th Dynasty on the west bank of the Nile, part of the necropolis of ancient Memphis.
Fernando Botero offers us a magnificent, monumental Sphinx imbued with his characteristic wit. Rendered in a joyous play of volumes, she slyly eyes us down below - less likely to pounce than to languidly observe. A magnificent example of the sculptor’s celebrated classical subjects. Like its ancient source of inspiration, it will continue to marvel the imagination of viewers through its powerful stature and the aura of its mythology.
