Nelson Fine Arts Center Plaza:
New Mexican Artist Luis Jimenez completed this 10-foot-tall fiberglass sculpture in 1987. The most famous pieta by Michelangelo, depicts Mary cradling Christ's crucified body, but in this Jimenez work, a kneeling Native American cradles a dead woman. The subject is taken from Mexican mythology and refers to the popular legend of two Mexican volcanoes. "It's a Romeo-and-Juliet story of two lovers turned into volcanoes by the gods: the active one is the grieving man; the dead woman is the dormant one," states Jimenez. "It is the most common image along the low rider vans and on restaurant and barrio murals." For the ASU dedication, he also wrote, "The Southwest Pieta addresses lost possibilities and lost opportunities for understanding each other through prejudice and lack of communication."