After 11 years, sculpture sees the finish line - and it's close

Daniel Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 16, 2007 at midnight

Text size  

• 0 Comments
• Email
• Print

Mustang, the $300,000 sculpture that was supposed to be installed at Denver International Airport in 1996, will finally gallop into town this fall.

"We hope to take delivery in the next couple of months," DIA spokeswoman Sally Covington told council members Wednesday.

"Promises," quipped Councilman Charlie Brown.

Numerous issues, including lawsuits, have delayed the arrival of the 32-foot tall blue horse with flashing red eyes.

The latest holdup was tragic.

On June 14, 2006, Luis Jimenez, the New Mexico-based sculptor, was killed when the torso section of the horse swung out of control while it was being hoisted and fell on him.

The city commissioned the sculpture in 1992, the airport opened in 1995, but the artwork didn't arrive by the 1996 due date. By 2003, the city decided to sue Jimenez for $165,000 that he had been paid.

Jimenez countersued over where the sculpture would be installed, and both cases were later dismissed.

The city plans to place the horse outside the terminal, and Covington said site preparation has been completed.

"The question now is transporting it," she said.

Jimenez, 65, was an artist known for larger-than-life sculptures of everything from dancers to men behind giant plows to works that incorporated Chicano and Mesoamerican imagery.

Featured

• DNC in Denver

  

  Complete coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

• The Crevasse

  

  A five-part series that examines one tragic day on Mount Rainier.

• Deadly denial

  

  Sick nuclear workers applied for government compensation but most haven't seen a dime.

• Final Salute

  

  The Rocky followed Maj. Steve Beck as he took on the most difficult duty of his career.

• 'Colorado's burning'

  

  Coverage of the state's worst wildfires.

• Columbine shootings

  

  Coverage of the April 20, 1999, shootings at Littleton's Columbine High School.

• The Crossing

  

  Colorado's deadliest traffic accident killed 20 children on Dec. 14, 1961.

• Osveli's journey

  

  Osveli Sales left Guatemala for a better life. Two months later, he came home in a box.

• Wake for an Indian warrior

  

  Oglala Sioux bestow a tribute to the first tribal fatality in Iraq.