Las Tunas.- Local specialist and artist along with colleagues from the Havana’s Historian Office are carrying out technical studies to undertake the restoration of the Fountain of the Atilles, one of the major works of the late Cuban sculptor Rita Longa.
The experts carry out the on-site diagnosis of each of the pieces that make up the sculpture, which was inaugurated on February 24, 1977, and which recreates a myth of the Taíno culture on the origin of the island of Cuba and the Caribbean Sea.
Reynaldo Rodriguez, from the Cabinet of Preservation and Restoration of the Havana’s Historian Office, told ACN that the restoration work will be very complex because of the extent deterioration of the work and the demand for large number of special materials.
In addition to the detailed observation of the elements of the sculpture, which has become a symbol of the city, archaeometry and chemistry and chemistry laboratory tests will be carried out, which will provide more data on the composition of building materials and their conservation status, added Rodriguez will be made.
Nover Olano, sculptor and one of the managers of the construction process with his colleague Pedro Escobar, explained that they will keep the principle of conservation of the greater amount of original parts, be repaired.
The also president the Advisory Council for the Development of the Monumental Sculpture in Las Tunas, said the restoration of the Fountain of the Atilles opens a new stage in the work of heritage protection in the province in which workshops and specialized courses will be developed.
Las Tunas is known as the Capital of the Cuban Sculpture by initiative of Rita Longa, who began the revitalization of Cuban sculptural movement with the inauguration of this piece. Many of those sculptures done in that stage can be seen today in the urban landscape of the city.
José Antonio Díaz Peláez, José Fuentes, Angel Iñigo, Guarionex Ferrer, Rafael Ferrero, Sergio Martínez, Alberto Lescay and Herminio Escalona are some of the Cuban sculptors who have pieces in the city, which will be subjected to a process of conservation.
By José Armando Fernández Salazar, Periodico26.cu
September 30, 2014
