Source: WTL photograph on site in Madrid (2008).
Image: Close-up photograph of Botero's sculpture, "Hand" (bronze), in the Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz on the Paseo de la Castellana in downtown Madrid.
Comments and questions: The plaza and the fountain you see behind this sculpture is named in honor of the great Renaissance Spanish mystic, saint, and Doctor of the Church, San Juan de la Cruz. (The building behind both the sculpture and the fountain is Spain's Labor Ministry.) Why do you suppost Spain's Ministry of Culture and Madrid's urban planners decided to place this contemporary sculpture squarely in front of this particular fountain/monument? One issue, of course, is that there was already enough space in this traffic circle plaza for such a large sculpture. What other issues, comments, interpretations occur to you given the seemingly stark contrasts between both monuments?