Breaking Life (Death and Helplessness)

• Author: Juan José Aquerreta.

• Materials and techniques: Bronze and sandstone.

• Measurements: Male: 220 cm; Child: 112 cm; Base: 260 x 120 x 120 cm.

• Location: place of the Presidium.

• Date of installation: 22 April 2007 (inauguration).

report On 6 May 2005, the Jury of the competition organised by the Tomás Caballero Foundation to commemorate the victims of terrorism in Pamplona, proclaimed proposal "Romper la vida (muerte y desamparo)" by the Pamplona artist Juan José Aquerreta, the winner, considering that it met the two conditions required: to serve as a memorial to all the victims of terrorism, and to arouse aesthetic admiration. The monument was installed at place del Baluarte in Pamplona, a space considered ideal for an initiative of this nature due to its central location and proximity to place de la Paz.

The sculptural group consists of two related cast bronze figures. The larger one depicts a man who has just been shot in the back of the head, slumping backwards in a curve intended to express maximum violence. The smaller one is a young boy, a witness to the murder and the victim's son, who, still in shock, begins a gesture of embrace that is interrupted by the death of his father. He wants to express the heartbreaking violence of the theft of life, the helplessness of those left behind, and the impossible intelligence of this act. The whole is raised on a high sandstone pedestal which plays both a symbolic and an aesthetic role, in that it is interpreted as elevating the heroism of the victims to the spiritual plane, while at the same time it serves to make the viewer feel involved in the aggressive sensation of vertigo when looking down from below, from the perspective of the collapsing figure of the victim.

In the monument, Aquerreta tries to reflect in all its crudeness the drama caused by terrorism. He used a figurative language reminiscent of organicism, far removed from realistic detail and characterised by the soft, rounded modelling of the figures, which sample his predilection for clay as a sculptural material.