This article accurately portrays the polemic surrounding the monument to Colombian President Alfonso López Pumarejo (in office from 1942–45), the first project for a public space by sculptor Feliza Bursztyn (1933–1982). The monument, which was to be built on the campus of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, was never produced for a number of reasons, including lack of funds, purported misconduct in the awarding of the project, and scandal about the aesthetic used to undertake a depiction of a president, since the work in question was not a bust representing the man but a composition of vertical tubes measuring twelve meters high and five meters wide.
This article contains statements by Marta Traba (1923–1983) in defense of the sculpture which, she argues, performs the commemorative function of a monument. The article also contains the widely disseminated arguments of a university professor who set out to attack the proposal because it was abstract and “accessible mainly to a snobbish minority.” Indeed, Cárdenas García’s statements even insinuated insults of Traba, albeit veiled by the excuse that he is not an expert in aesthetics. Regardless, he had no qualms about dismissing the sculpture, citing statements by artists like Gonzalo Ariza (1912–1995) and Luis Alberto Acuña (1904–1984). No one and nothing was beyond this controversy, least of all the monument that was cast aside due to a lack of funding and the coarse indifference of a conservative society.
