Street Sculpture Route I: 18. Monument to the Cat

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Route · Subcategory: Street sculpture I · Year: 1973 · Authors: Óscar Domínguez

This work was created in 1973 for the I International Street Sculpture Exhibition following the plans, photos and specific data provided by the Viscount of Noailles, in whose property in Hyères the original work made between 1952 and 1955 by the surrealist artist from Tenerife Óscar Domínguez (1906-1957) is located.

Now located in a less visible place than where it was originally installed, within García Sanabria park, the sculpture consists of four masonry columns that serve as the animal's legs, and on which appear, as a frieze, the green eyes and the iron whiskers of the cat.

This work is a clear example of the surreal humour so well practised by its author, who at 21 years old went to Paris where he came into contact with André Breton's surrealist group.

Monument to the Cat is configured as an ideal work to be installed in a public park. Its playful character of imaginative invention, full of sparkling challenge, evidently distorts the meaning of what it represents: a disturbing cat that watches us from the unknown.

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