When Miguel Vela, the artistic director and owner of LocoSigns in Brownsville submitted his sketch of a mural for the new UTB-TSC gymnasium, the reception was enthusiastic.
He was commissioned to erect – at $13,000 – the mural on the wall of the new building, appropriately along the second-floor running track."The runner's scrotum was out of logical proportion," said a runner who uses the gym's running track regularly. "And the buttocks of the runners were clearly visible. Some of the more sedate runners complained to UTB president Juliet Garcia."
It is said that when Garcia ran (appropriately) to the gym she was aghast when she saw the offending art. She didn't hesitate to order the creation destroyed and torn down from the wall.
"In one fell swoop she had the mural torn down. In the process, there was paint scraped off the wall because the mural had been glued on it. Now the repairs are going to cost another $3,000 to $4,000."
No one is saying much about the mural which was up one day and down the next, but we'll be interested to see what the replacement will be. Perhaps we'll see swimmers with crinolined swimsuits of the Victorian era. Or perhaps just a modestly painted wall.
This is not the first time that Juliet has been bitten in the hindsight by an art project. The last time the UTB-TSC commissioned a $640,000 mural by a Mexican artist, the outcry was such that the Pres offered to raise private funds to pay for the work. In this case, with the art having been approved and the payments made, will the public also eat the bill?
8 comments:
Did Julieta not look at the sketch and apporve it before it became reality or did she think there was nothing wrong with it and let it go. This woman has done nothing right for this college and continues to be in the spotlight of no good. The UT regency in Austin needs to get rid of her and bring someone in this campus with a positive vision that will benefit the students and community. She has done nothing good but to pleae her OWN endeavors and her likes. Time to go!
From what I can see, I find nothing offensive about it. It depicts the human body in motion.
Get a Life and get over the hatred you have of Dr. Garcia.
Are these American artists or Mexican artists being commissioned for these murals?
It appears that the University is going out of its way to commission Mexican artists.
No doubt one of her minions made a decision and this is Julieta's dramatic way of making an ass out of that person and wasting more tax dollars. She has historically been a master of Kardenas Klan economis....How to wast tax dollars 101. Now she wastes even more to repair the "rip-down" decision. We can only wonder who she will fire for this decoration.
Julieta is all for Mexicans across the border, and tends to benefit them more than the side of the country she calls home. She is old school along with the croonies who think they invented brownsville and want to keep that way. Kardenas, Martinez's, etc.,
Who she will fire? You didn't notice Ronnie Zamora resigned?
Garcia approved the work, which is part of a classic photographic study of human motion, but she no idea that it would look so risque when expanded to mural size. The cost was not excessive for this sort of thing, unless we think that blank walls are the best adornment for a recreation facility. When she saw how it looked, she ordered it covered, then removed. But folks, this was several years ago. Perhaps we should focus on her more recent actions, which are infinitely more serious.
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