Plaza San Pedro Claver

Plaza San Pedro Claver is one block from Plaza de La Aduana and is a popular gathering point for locals, with many public benches.  It has a stunning church, but I will put that in another post.

The square has many avant-garde sculptures paying tribute to the street activities by artist Edgardo Carmona.

Apparently, they are all named.  This one that portrays the spirit of the game as the opponents sit face to face across the board and is called Juego de Ajedrez.

The artist sketched several versions of this piece, testing his knowledge of the game and the implications of moves and scenarios to the player’s expressions.

Juego de Domino depicts players sitting around a domino game.

The Domino players capture the simplicity and ease of outdoor Caribbean living.

The artist has captured the expressions as the players strategize each move.

Melomano captures the music lover as he leans into the music, totally absorbed by it.

El Vendedor de raspao is a snow cone street vendor.

Having said that all the statues are named, I have struggled to find the names for all the statues I photographed.

This one clearly depicts shoe shining.

I assume this is one of the Palenqueras, with the fruit on her head.

This one too seems to have fruit for sale.

Carmona’s sculptures are cast in structural iron and welded together they weigh from 200 pounds to more than 1,000 pounds and most are between 7 to 10 feet tall.

Each piece of work tells a story.

But I have not been able to find information on all of them to know the whole story.  Perhaps that is the point, I need to see the work and form my own story.

There is also a bronze statue of Claver ministering to slaves that dominates the center of the Plaza, by artist Enrique Grau.  I didn’t get a picture of it because there were too many people having their pictures taken with the statue at the time.  I intended to go back, but with so much to see it slipped my mind.