Old Boots
Old Shoes is a sculpture located in Cartagena, Colombia, also known as Old Boots. It was created in honour of Colombian poet Luis Carlos López, who in his poem A mi ciudad nativa evoked the affection he felt for his hometown, Cartagena, by comparing it to a pair of old shoes.
''To My Native City''
Noble corner of my forebears: nothing
like recalling, wandering through alleyways,
the times of the cross and the sword,
the smoky lamp and sulphur matches.
For gone is, walled city,
your feuilleton age. The caravels
have left your harbour forever—
no more does the oil arrive in earthen jars.
Heroic you were in colonial times,
when your sons, majestic eagles,
were not yet a rabble of swifts.
Yet today, laden with musty decay,
you can still inspire that affection
one feels for one’s worn old shoes.
—Luis Carlos López
History
In 1954, sculptor Tito Lombana proposed to the mayor of Cartagena, Vicente Martínez Martelo, to pay tribute to poet Luis Carlos López and conceived the idea of designing large, worn-looking shoes made of cement, wire and iron.The sculpture was erected amid strong controversy: from its announcement in 1957 it was branded as an "eyesore" and "disrespectful" for departing from traditional monumental aesthetics, making it an example of an anti-monument, similar to the cases of Rodin and Rosso. The work, far from exalting a hero or historical event, showed the everyday and banal, generating rejection for its anti-aesthetic and prosaic character. However, this destructive criticism, amplified by the press and public opinion, turned out to be the trigger that allowed the piece to be legitimised over time, transforming into a modern symbol of the city.
Despite the negative reception from the public, poet Héctor Rojas Herazo gave a speech with which he invited citizens to give the work a different perspective:
These cement shoes have been a cause of bewilderment. And this is explained because this is a country where we like to play the hero of the public square: one statue begets another. We like to play at the seriousness of marble and the seriousness of bronze. We like to play the gentleman with moustaches and the operatic arrogance that confronts us on an avenue atop a plinth of fake stone. This has been and will continue to be the nation of statues.
Well then, these shoes are the negation of the statue. And, by a strange paradox, Luis Carlos López is here, is more alive in these desolate stones than if his effigy stood upright before this block of wall and before this piece of sea. Because these shoes that today rest on this pedestal are all of our shoes. The shoes that we have all worn and that have the mould of our walking and have suffered in a stretch of our existence the misfortune of our step, those that wait for us in the morning as if they were fragile friends or vessels of our blood.
With these shoes, the statue of all human shoes, we have suffered and we have loved. And with them, aboard them, we have met a woman, greeted a friend and we have gone to a hospital, to a house of pleasure, to a temple or to a cemetery.
Héctor Rojas Herazo.
The sculpture remained in the city for 37 years until, in 1994, due to the construction of an avenue, its relocation was decided. However, due to its advanced state of deterioration, it could not be restored, so sculptor Héctor Lombana, Tito's brother, chose to demolish it and create a bronze replica, which constitutes the currently known sculpture. The new work was located at Pie Del Cerro, behind the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.
There is also another replica of the work at Coral Gables Plaza, Florida, which was a gift from the city of Cartagena.