Luis Jiménez’s gaudy, on-campus fiesta dancers have spurred unfavorable reactions from passersby, but their appearance is intended to portray Southwest working class members’ lives.
Graduate student Eric Castillo is writing his thesis on the artist. He said Jimenéz’s career began in New York City, but he returned to the Southwest where he produced work that illustrated his vision of America.
“A lot of it is archetypal, so like universal images that have meaning for a lot of people,” Castillo said. “He wanted to make sure that as many audiences as possible could relate to his work.”
An internationally known artist, Jiménez’s El Paso upbringing influenced his art work, said Reginald Richie, Jiménez’s friend. He said Jiménez’s vibrant color use amplifies the statues’ attributes.
“It’s a very beautiful piece, and his work is very skillful, very dramatic,” Richie said. “The scale is exaggerated and so were the features.”
Jiménez died in 2006 after a piece of his sculpture fell and severed his femoral artery.
Installed at UNM in 1996, “Fiesta Jarabe,” the dancing statues in front of Popejoy Hall, is inspired by Jiménez’s observations of dancers in Hondo, N.M.
Delilah Montoya, a friend and former colleague, said the statues are a cultural hybrid, and Jimenéz wanted to create a piece that reconciled American and Mexican differences.
“Because of his Mexican background, he wanted to work in the themes that he understood the best and could relate to,” she said.
Student Serena Davidson said the statues aren’t visually appealing.
“I think it was a great idea, just to show the Hispanic population and culture we have, but the statues themselves are kind of ugly,” she said.
Castillo said students think the statues are unattractive, but they change their mind when he explains Jiménez’s background and intentions.
“His people and his images are mostly shapely people with a sort of gaudiness to them,” he said. “I mean, they just look worked. Their bodies look worked, and that comes back to his working-class aesthetic.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Richie said all of Jiménez’s work is meaningful, and he said the statues convey life’s beauty.
“It’s the enjoyment of human life — the human sexuality, that’s really obvious,” he said. “The passion and the joy of life, beauty, and the human spirit. He was interested in life, the way life is lived.”
And Jiménez died that way.
