Evita looms larger than life with towering tribute

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Evita looms larger than life with towering tribute

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Giant cast-iron portrait of Argentina's Evita commemorates the 59th anniversary of her death.

27 July,2011 01:20 pm

Almost six decades since her death, the figure of Evita Peron is still very much alive in Argentine politics.A towering 10-story high portrait of the charismatic first lady will watch over the capital in a government-funded tribute inspired by the famous Che Guevara sculpture in Havanas Revolution Square.President Cristina Fernandez, who often invokes Evitas memory in speeches to supporters, unveiled the cast-iron portrait that covers one side of the Health Ministry building.Because she was one of the most hated but also one of the most loved, insulted but venerated, one of the most humiliated but today, eternally victorious. This icon is for all Argentines, Fernandez said.Evita was an actress who married late President Juan Peron and is still adored by many Argentines for helping women get the vote, securing labor benefits for the working classes and founding hospitals and orphanages.From the same building where her sculptural portrait now hangs she famously disappointed supporters by hinting she would not run as Perons vice presidential candidate in 1951.This is not the first massive depiction of Evita in Argentina.A giant painting of the famous first lady was painted onto the rooftop of a downtown Buenos Aires office building.It was the work of Alejandro Marmo, the artist who was commissioned to produce this latest sculpture by Fernandezs center-left government last year.He designed the giant Evita image, which as this replica shows, depicts the glamorous Evita with her trademark top-knot hairstyle.I think the project is bigger than me in terms of the scale of the work. It is a public work. And my job was to imagine a tribute on the wall, paying homage to Evita. All I wanted was for the image to be put up. And I was lucky enough for the idea to have circulated and reached the presidents office which called and asked for the project to be developed, Marmo said.Tuesdays inauguration marks the 59th anniversary of Evitas death from cancer at the age of 33 at the height of her popularity.Another image, of a combative Evita addressing a huge crowd during that speech, will hang from the other side of the building and is due to be inaugurated in the coming months..