page_title: María Lionza (statue)
section_title: Olympic Stadium
hierarchical_section_title: María Lionza (statue) / Construction and location / Olympic Stadium
caption_attribution_description: English: Caracas Estadio Olimpico in 1951
context_page_description: María Lionza is a large statue depicting the titular goddess, María Lionza, riding a tapir. It is located between lanes of the Francisco Fajardo freeway next to the University City campus of the Central University of Venezuela, in Caracas. The original, which is currently located in a university warehouse, was created by Alejandro Colina in 1951 to sit outside the stadium for that year's Bolivarian Games. In its place on the highway is a cast made by Silvestre Chacón in 2004; the replacement has received negative reactions, and its construction damaged the original.
  Colina often depicted indigenous figures like María Lionza, and it is said to be his most famous sculpture. In the statue, the goddess is shown nude, which is unusual for representations of her. Nevertheless, the statue, and versions of it, are worshiped by her followers.
context_section_description: The monumental statue was originally made to sit outside the Central University of Venezuela (UCV)'s Olympic Stadium for the 1951 Bolivarian Games; during the Bolivarian Games, the Olympic flame was held in the pelvis at the top of the statue. There is another monumental statue, Francisco Narváez' El Atleta, that is also located by the Olympic Stadium and was made in 1951. Unlike the other works of art at the university, which were part of the modernist Synthesis of the Arts movement under the design of architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, the statue of María Lionza was commissioned by the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who wanted to make her a symbol of Venezuela.
caption: The newly-completed Olympic Stadium at the outset of the 1951 Bolivarian Games.
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