• Figurative
• Paseo Maritimo
• On display

This sculpture, located on Primero de Mayo street, is the work of Bettino Mauro, a native of Italy, for the VIII Sculpture Symposium of the capital city. The 2014 edition was a modest one in which only four pieces were created, all in marble although each bearing the characteristic signature of their respective authors. Mauro's work, figurative in style, represents a hand that tears apart a book and releases the pieces. The fingers hold the delicate pages, which tear with barely any resistance, surrendering to a force against which they cannot compete. Perhaps it signifies the end of knowledge, the stagnation of learning; or perhaps it reflects humanity's ease in indolently destroying that which has cost so much effort to achieve. Or it may be that in its figuration the author intended to enclose a less evident metaphor, the veiled advice to break with stereotypes and doctrines, not to take for granted everything we have learned, to change the questions and seek new answers, not to conform, to doubt, to put ourselves to the test.