A new sculpture has gone up downtown, and its size makes it hard to miss. And oddly, the whole installation pretty much came out of nowhere.
“The project came about because we reached out to Sebastián, the sculptor, and asked him about repainting the Torch of Friendship because it had faded over time,” said the Department of Arts and Culture’s Debbie Racca-Sittre.
The Torch of Friendship is the massive, soaring, bright orange sculpture Sebastián installed in 2002 at Alamo and Commerce streets.
“And he said, ‘Oh, I have something for you. I'm going to give it to you,’” Racca-Suittre said. “So he came up with this royal blue two columns that have this twisted metal look, and they are equal in size, because they reflect equality. And he called it The Door of Equality. ”
That title is spelled out in the concrete base the city put under it. Heading towards downtown you see its title.
“When you come from the north, you're reading Equality and you're seeing that that's what it's symbolizing,” Racca-Sittre said.
While it’s not as big as the Torch of Friendship, it’s big.
“It's 33 feet high and then it's also on top of a base, about three to four feet tall,” she said.
The sculpture is located at the new San Pedro Street roundabout, just a block away from the city’s enchilada red library designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta. Racca-Sittre says Sebastián knew Legoretta and said he wanted to continue the city’s artistic relationship with Mexico.
Racca-Sittre quoted him as saying, “I want to make something for San Antonio that speaks to how much I love San Antonio and this the great welcome that I get here, because not everywhere does everybody embrace a Mexican sculptor.”
Watch a time lapse of the installation here.
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