Five life-size animal sculptures went up along Bagley Street on Friday. They're the work of Elton Monroy Durán, a 45-year-old Detroit-based artist who grew up in Tula, Hidalgo, repairing cars in his father's shop. Each sculpture is built from cut and welded car parts.
Each is an alebrije, the brightly painted folk-art figure that comes out of Oaxaca, with roots in Aztec spirit-creature traditions and a more recent lineage tied to Pedro Linares López's papier-mâché versions. The five animals: a big cat at six feet tall, a giraffe just over seven, plus a donkey, a dog, and a wolf. They line Bagley between 24th Street and the I-75 Service Drive, the same stretch the city redesigned in 2019 as a curb-less shared street that can flip between traffic and plaza.
The Knight Foundation supplied $67,000 for materials. The Gilbert Family Foundation added $37,000. The Southwest Detroit Business Association will maintain the work.
Durán has been painting murals across Mexicantown for years. There's a Frida Kahlo on the side of Xochj's Mexican Imports at 3434 Bagley. He's done others around the corridor, building what he describes as a portrait of the neighborhood that pushes back against having Mexicantown described as merely "diverse." His point is that the neighborhood is specifically Mexican, and that flattening it into the language of diversity erases what it actually is.
The alebrijes idea came partly from the Diego Rivera murals at the DIA, which Durán points to as a permanent record of Mexican workers' contribution to Detroit's auto industry. He sourced scrap from Model T and Model A bodies along with other vintage parts, cut the metal in his garage studio, welded the pieces into animal forms, and spray-painted them in saturated colors. Around 100 people showed up for the unveiling.
José Maldonado, the Mexicantown Main Street director who lived in Southwest Detroit before moving away, called the sculptures a celebration of the families who built the neighborhood. Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero hugged Durán in front of the donkey. Cesar Chavez Academy High School students took pictures in front of the big cat. Bagley Street between 24th Street and the I-75 Service Drive, Southwest Detroit.
