Bipedal Sun; Pierre Székely

El Sol Bípedo (The Bipedal Sun, or the Two-footed Sun) is a monumental sculpture on the southside of the Periférico Sur highway. It’s just inside the onramp from the Picacho-Ajusco highway. The work was created by Hungarian artist Pierre Szekely for the Route of Friendship. The Route was developed to commemorate the 1968 Olympic Games.

The work was Station #5 on the route, and represented Hungary and also France, as the artist lived there at the time. The work is some 13 meters tall. It’s among the most organic in form of the works in the Ruta de la Amistad. Originally, it bore a terracotta colored paint. During a restoration in 2000, the artist re-colored the work in the bright yellow we see today. He’d never quite agreed with the original color.

• Pierre Székely (1923–2001) was a Hungarian sculptor and painter. Born in Budapest, he settled in France after World War II. Sent to a labor camp in 1944, he learned stone cutting there, but also learned of the murder of his much-admired teacher, Hanna Dallos. He’d settled in Paris already in 1946. By 1950, he was making Surrealist works and experimenting with his first abstract works in stone. He began to collaborate with architects in the late 1950s and continued to make monumental works through the 1970s. Considering his work neither nor figurative, but “expressive,” Székely strived to put it in harmony with the universe and with human nature.

El Sol Bípedo was restored in 2005 with support from TV Azteca. It’s currently maintained by Arte & Cultura Grupo Salinas.