Mirtha Legrand’s Controversial Statue: Artist Daniel Melero and His Work

by request of Mirtha Legrandthe municipality of Villa Cañas removed the statue which was inaugurated as part of the celebrations for its 121st anniversary. Daniel Meleroa native of Córdoba, was in charge of making the statue that it must be retouched to return to its placesince his work was deeply criticized on social networks and by the daughter of the driver, Marcela Tinayre.

The metallic sculpture was removed after the television diva herself publicly declared that he had not liked. Although she was initially grateful and ignored the criticism, she finally acknowledged that she did not feel represented. “That’s not me”he said, emphasizing the smile of the statue.

Mirtha Legrand now has two statues in her hometown: what did Chiqui say about the tribute

“Look, don’t take it out, have it fixed because it’s by a sculptor from Laboulaye, from Córdoba, who surely doesn’t know me. Give him a photo of me and ask him to take the photo back because I didn’t recognize myself.‘. The idea is very good, I am very grateful to the people of Cañas, because they adore me and I adore them, it is a wonderful town, “said the driver in communication with the mayor of her hometown, Norberto Gizzi, whom she defined as” charming “.

Although the artist had declared that he worked from the beginning using a photo of Mirtha as a reference, she proposed that the face of the statue be revised, because “it is not good”. In addition, although at first Melero affirmed that “Mirtha knew from the beginning” about the tribute and that “she gave the ok for it to be carried out”, now the host declared that “I don’t know where this came from, I didn’t know what they were doing either a statue”.

The work of the artist Daniel Melero

Daniel Melero -namesake of the renowned producer and composer from Buenos Aires- has more than 25 years of experience as a sculptor and a title as a professor of Plastic Arts. He is a native of Laboulaye, a city located southeast of the city of Córdoba.

In his career, he has already inaugurated sculptures of popular characters, such as Pablo Aimar, Lionel Messi and Soledad Pastorutti. However, on many occasions his art has already been viralized on networks, since people debate the similarities.

Controversy in Villa Cañas over the statue in honor of Mirtha Legrand

When criticized for his tribute to Mirtha Legrand, he reflected: “Criticism has to be constructive to be usefulIt has to be something strong. It doesn’t have to be destructive because it’s useless. Before the error, there is always criticism. People give their opinions and many times the custom is to give an opinion without knowing”.

In 2014, the artist inaugurated his tribute to The Sun. It is a sculpture found in Arequito, a town in the Caseros department, Santa Fe province, where the famous folk singer is from. In the statue, La Sole was represented with country panties, a t-shirt, a vest and with her typical poncho fluttering.

In 2017, a sculpture by Melero was inaugurated in the Futbolista square in Río Cuarto, honoring the idol of River Pablo Aimar. The sculpture not only raised debates about its resemblance to the soccer player, but also caused a stir because in that town in Cordoba, by ordinance, it was prohibited to carry out this type of tribute to living people.

More recently, in 2021, Melero built in Córdoba the sculpture of Lionel Messi, after the team won the Copa América. The photos of the iron-forged statue had also gone viral and were the subject of conversation on the networks. In the sculpture, the Argentine captain appears running, about to kick a ball.

In his social networks, Melero shares a large part of his work. He also made metallic sculptures of unionists who promoted Cordobazo, made San Expedito in color and honored workers with sculptures called “Jardinero” and “El pastero”. In other formats, he also exhibited figures of horses carved in wood, the face of Saint Martin in openwork metal, and a mural in high relief honoring the teaching work.

ML / ED