Congratulations, Francisco Cabrera, for the initiative. Congratulations, Pedro San Ginés, for supporting the project. The tribute to the Lanzarote artist Pancho Lasso has been a sober and endearing act, full of content and necessary for ...
Congratulations, Francisco Cabrera, for the initiative. Congratulations, Pedro San Ginés, for supporting the project. The tribute to the Lanzarote artist Pancho Lasso has been a sober and endearing act, full of content and necessary for a creator who is unfairly little known, but whose work and career make him more than deserving of the distinction received.
Although I recognize my initial reservations about floral offerings, eulogies and various public acknowledgments, life has made me consider these acts as essential. When a society pays tribute to one of its children, it not only does justice to their merits; to some extent, it makes them its own, by showing itself capable of recognizing and applauding those values.
As a central element of the recognition of Pancho Lasso and a permanent reminder of the man and his work, the piece "Homage to the International" has been installed in the Arrecife marina, at the express wish of the family. A sonorous title that some, hidden behind an incomprehensible ideological prejudice, insist on calling "Homage to Music".
The emotional words of Rosalía, the sculptor's daughter, of enormous integrity tinged with emotion, painted a wonderful story that should not be forgotten. She recounted how she knew the original of the work in her childhood, which her father kept when some visits arrived; how they hid its meaning and its name to avoid problems; how they referred to it, in those years of repression and fear, of curtailed ideologies and unique discourse, as "Homage to Music", hiding the true meaning of the figure raising its fist: the homage to the socialist anthem and the desire for all the workers of the world to unite and be free.
Today, thanks to the freedom we have conquered and the words of Rosalía Lasso, the true title and meaning of the work will be able to remain in the collective memory of Lanzarote and its people, leaving behind the indignity and outrage of having to disguise its soul.
Carlos Espino
General Secretary of the Socialists of Lanzarote
