Article published in Utrera Digital
Utrera is going to the presence of a monument in its streets in the near future. dedicated to Abbé Marchena. It will be made by the prestigious artist Jordi Díez, from Valladolid, who has tried to translate into an artistic work the indomitable character of the intellectual from Utrera. The intention is that it will be inaugurated on or around January 31, the date commemorating the death of the utrerano.
This is the final colophon to the cultural year of Abate Marchena, so this Tuesday, several members of the municipal corporation, with the mayor at the head, accompanied the artist who has received the commission for the realization of the monument. All of them visited the town, with the aim of finding the best location for this permanent memorial to the illustrator.
Jordi Díez already has practically finished this work, which will be added to the list of illustrious characters that stand out in the streets of Utrera. It is a sculptor with extensive experience, he studied Fine Arts at the University of Complutense University of Madrid and has specialized since 2007 in works made exclusively with steel. It is worth mentioning works such as the sculptural interpretation of Loewe’s “Amazona” bag for the window display of the store that this brand has in the Gran Vía in Madrid or the elements of the exclusive cutlery ordered by El Celler de Can Roca. He has worked in art projects in places such as San Francisco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United States. Singapore.
One of the main difficulties that arise when approaching a figure such as Abbé Marchena, which are even more extreme for a visual artist, is that although literature has bequeathed many physical descriptions of the Utreran -most of them focused on the numerous defects he had-, no portrait of his face has reached the present day. The artist has recognized that he has faced a very special commission, assuring that “I had never done a monument without a face, the expressiveness of the sculpture has moved to other areas, it has been a very peculiar and special expressive challenge for me. The power of the character was due more to his intelligence than to his physical presence”.
