“I, America” is Bon Pastor’s indigenous warrior, a female silhouette made of steel plate and painted red, posing imposingly at the traffic circle where Potosí street meets Paseo de Guayaqui in Barcelona.
The sculpture, designed by Mexican artist Alberto Cavazos, is a replica of another similar one that the same master unveiled in 1993 in Monterrey, Mexico.
The imposing female torso was installed in Barcelona two years later, as a donation by the artist to the city.
The gift was a symbol of celebration of the brotherhood between the two cities.
The inauguration was attended by the mayors of Monterrey and Barcelona, as well as the artist Cavazos.
From there and to perpetuate in time the brotherhood between the two cities, the traffic circle where the sculpture is located was called Monterrey Square.
A female silhouette between the abstract and the symbolic
The artwork weighs five tons and is five meters high.
It represents a warrior woman from the indigenous peoples of northern Mexico.
The enormous sculpture looks towards the Mediterranean Sea, following parallel to the course of the Besòs River.
There are several ways of looking at the work: if viewed from the side, it is seen as a totally abstract figure.
But if done frontally you can see the profile of the female head, with the large void that in turn forms the hair, the arms and the two cylinders that represent the warrior’s breasts.
