Surprise at Puerta del Sol: a statue of Juan Carlos I points a hunting rifle at the Bear and the Strawberry Tree

The most embarrassing moment of Juan Carlos I brought to art. A sculpture depicting the king emeritus, armed with a hunting shotgun aiming at The Bear and the Strawberry Tree, has appeared this Wednesday morning erected in the Puerta de Sol in Madrid. When the keyboards of the newsrooms are still hot after publishing endless chronicles of the recent and controversial visit of the emeritus king to Spain, the figure of the father of Philip VI never stop talking.

This time it is an artistic installation, the work of the Chilean sculptor Nicholas Miranda, which does not hide the motivation of his work and more so at the moment chosen for its appearance. The sculpture measures 170 centimeters, is made of polyurethane and modeling clay, and has been placed without permission with the intention of “ridiculing the figure of the monarch.”

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The sculpture is called Parasitic strategies for survival in a cruel worldand has been installed without permission from the authorities in the heart of Puerta del Sol, right on the sidewalk from where Calle Alcalá begins, clearly pointing towards the emblematic The Bear and the Strawberry Tree representing the city of Madrid. The work, which has already been withdrawn, aims to denounce the well-known and remembered hunts of the emeritus in Africa, which were uncovered by an accident that the monarch had in 2012, during a safari that was scandalous.

As will be remembered, a photograph of Juan Carlos in front of a downed elephant, enjoying very expensive activities on the African continent, while Spain was experiencing the height of a major economic crisis, emerged from that trip. Due to this bumpy trip, he ended up transcending the personal and intimate relationship that the grandfather of froilan He kept with who organized his trips and hunts, Corinna Larsen.

Miranda’s original artistic proposal will be exhibited at the “La Parcería” Cultural Association, from where they have indicated that this artist understands visuality as a type of language, and consequently, as a combinatory system of signs willing to be appropriated and manipulated. to reread the environment that contains us: it operates from the manipulation of opposing elements that seek tension as a result”.

Tension may not be generated, but surely it has mobilized consciences and caused a big smile among tourists and people from Madrid who have been able to enjoy the artistic proposal for the time that it has been seen, installed without any permission, in the emblematic Puerta del Sun.