The University of New Mexico has rejected a sculpture it had commissioned from a Native-American artist because his final product includes barbed wire.
The work, “Cultural Crossroads,” by Bob Haozous, “is not the work we commissioned,” says Bob Walsh, director of UNM’s Pine Arts Museum. “It is substantially different.” The model that Haozous presented is different from the final product, says Walsh. And while a number of changes were made from the original model, it is one change, in particular, that has raised the ire of the university — the razor wire that sits atop the work.
The sculpture depicts a migration scene from an old Aztec picture book. Three Indians are shown migrating toward Albuquerque in the United States. According to Haozous, the work depicts a border crossing.
“Everything in the work is a symbol,” says Haozous, explaining that the full title of the work is called “Cultural Crossroads of the Americas.” The barbed wire, which appears both in his work and along the U.S.-Mexico border, “is a dehumanizing part of our lives…. It’s tremendous symbolism.” As to why it was not part of the original model, he says: “The work matured in the studio.”
