Martin Luther King Jr. statue "looks confrontational&qu

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2008-05-10 11:39pm

WASHINGTON (May 10) - The centerpiece for the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the National Mall has drawn criticism from a federal arts panel, which says the proposed statue looks "confrontational" and resembles the head of a socialist state more than a civil rights leader.
Models of the 28-foot tall statue depict King emerging from a chunk of granite, his arms folded in front of his chest, his legs firmly rooted, an intense gaze on his face.

But the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which reviews the design of projects in the capital area, said the design should be reworked to reflect a more sympathetic rendering of King.

Members thought "the proposed treatment of the sculpture - as the most iconographic and central element of the memorial to Dr. King - would be unfortunate and inappropriate as an expression of his legacy," wrote Thomas Luebke, commission secretary, in an April 25 letter to the foundation that is planning the King memorial and the National Park Service.

The panel said the statue looked "confrontational" and reflected a "genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries."

Harry Johnson, president of the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial, said a new design would be submitted June 15 that includes a "softening of Dr. King." His facial expression, for example, will be changed.

The criticism from the panel, which must approve the design in order for work to go forward, was part of a dialogue, Johnson said. But he added it would be hard to confuse the slain civil rights icon with an authoritarian figure.

"I don't think anybody could look at a statue of Dr. King and say he looks like a dictator," Johnson said.

Work is scheduled to begin this year on the memorial, to be built with $100 million in mostly private funds on the banks of the National Mall's Tidal Basin. A symbolic groundbreaking was held in 2006 with much pomp, including speeches by President Bush and a string of political leaders and civil rights figures. It will probably open to the public in two years.

The King statue, to be carved by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, will be chiseled out of a granite boulder called "The Stone of Hope." It will be the largest statue on the Mall, bigger than those at the nearby memorials to Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Lei has made a full-size clay model in China but has not yet carved the granite statue.

The design is not the first controversy over the memorial. Critics said last year that the sculptor should be black or at least American, and that King would have been appalled by China's poor record on human rights.

Emphasis mine. Posted without comment for now.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2008-05-11 12:01am

Yes, because blacks won legal equality by being non-confrontational and very careful not to upset anybody.

Masami von Weizegger · Post by **Masami von Weizegger** » 2008-05-11 12:08am

I would hope Mr. King would be appalled by these idiot's discrimination against a sculptor because of their ethnicity and nationality.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-05-11 12:51am

I would think that he would embrace a Chinese sculptor BECAUSE their civil rights record is so bad. Like "Hey look, I'm getting my message through even in China. Sweet."

Damn, though. 28 feet? What pose could he be in that DOESN'T make him look like ruler of the world.

I have a tiny problem with it being larger than Lincoln and Jefferson's statues, but not much.

FSTargetDrone · Post by **FSTargetDrone** » 2008-05-11 01:00am

havokeff wrote:Damn, though. 28 feet? What pose could he be in that DOESN'T make him look like ruler of the world.

I have a tiny problem with it being larger than Lincoln and Jefferson's statues, but not much.

Fear not:

Lincoln's statue was sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850-1931); plaster casts of Lincoln's hands and face were used to make the statue. The statue is over 3 times actual size; if the statue could stand up, it would be 28 feet tall. The murals were done by Jules Guerin. The 36 Doric columns represent the 36 states of the Union at the time of President Lincoln's death in 1865.

If Abe gets to his feet he will be able to look at the good Reverend eye-to-eye, as equals.

Morilore · Post by **Morilore** » 2008-05-11 01:11am

What a crock of shit. Dr. King should be depicted as confrontational. He upset people, and it was important that he continued to upset people. Fucking happy-fun-candy view of history.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2008-05-11 01:49am

Well....the clay model does look somewhat like the statues of Lenin or Stalin that you see in pictures from the old Soviet Bloc.

That criticism is in the eye of the beholder, but it's reasonable.
Saying it's offensive that a gasp Chinese sculptor is crafting the statue isn't reasonable.

As an aside, Daniel French (the sculptor who did the Lincoln Memorial statue) is a distant relative of mine on my maternal Great-Grandfather's side of the family.
Too bad that *I* have all the creativity and artistic bent of a bag of rocks

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-05-11 03:26am

The statue looks like it would be at home standing aside to Josef Stalin or Saddam Hussein. There's a difference between looking "confrontational" and looking "despotic".

They really just need to soften the pose and the features a bit.

Complaining about the race of the sculptor is hilarious irony, though.

hongi · Post by **hongi** » 2008-05-11 03:33am

It may just be me, but I don't really see how he looks despotic. He just looks serious.

TheKwas · Post by **TheKwas** » 2008-05-11 04:10am

I think it captures MLK fairly well actually. If you watch Martin Luther King in action, he typically carried such a 'serious' posture. Even from just the 'I have a dream' footage you get a similar drift.

cosmicalstorm · Post by **cosmicalstorm** » 2008-05-11 04:35am

Maybe they should consider an alternative design?

KlavoHunter · Post by **KlavoHunter** » 2008-05-11 07:14am

For some reason, Dr. King looks an awful lot like Mao in that sculpture.

Jawawithagun · Post by **Jawawithagun** » 2008-05-11 10:13am

I for one like it.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2008-05-11 10:24am

I personally don't care for the sculpture, but I couldn't tell you exactly what I didn't like. I think there quite rightly should be a King statue, but I dunno, maybe it's the crossed arms?

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2008-05-11 10:57am

Qwerty 42 wrote:I personally don't care for the sculpture, but I couldn't tell you exactly what I didn't like. I think there quite rightly should be a King statue, but I dunno, maybe it's the crossed arms?

Could be.
Personally I believe a statue of him reaching out symbolically to the rest of humanity would be better.

But like I said earlier, I have all the creativity of a box of rocks.

Thag · Post by **Thag** » 2008-05-11 11:03am

It doesn't look despostic so much as pissed off. The kind of pissed off where you look out the window and the neighbor's dog is digging up your flower bed again.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2008-05-11 11:47am

I was kinda hoping he would be raising an AK-47 or something, once I read the OP.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-05-11 12:29pm

Despotic?

This?

Well, talk about people pulling shit out of their ass; not to mention the ire at the sculptor being Chinese; ugly racist pieces of shit.

He looks serious. More than that, statues of Soviet leaders do not look anything like this. And "Stalin statues"? There's only one remaining as far as I know, and it's in his hometown. Which, incidentally, looks nothing like a despot. Stalin also had a statue that copied Lincoln's posture in the Lincoln memorial. Should that mean Lincoln's posture is "despotic"? What a smoking pile of shit.

And yeah he looks badass and confrontational; considering his history, the "I oppose establishment" pose is just perfect in my opinion.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2008-05-11 02:09pm

What the fuck are people thinking? The guy's ethnically Chinese - what does that have to do with China's civil rights record? It's not a gift from the Chinese government, it's just a Chinese guy sculpting MLK.

It's not very socialist looking, either. I can't really identify the elements from a pure artistic point of view.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2008-05-11 03:35pm

I actually like this design a lot.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2008-05-11 03:36pm

I like the pose...

I just don't think it looks that much like Dr. King. The face just looks... wrong.

That aside, the story is bullshit. And unless the Chinese government is being paid the commission I don't see how their human rights record enters into it.

Post by **Simplicius** » 2008-05-11 04:04pm

It looks pretty Art Deco - anyone who's taken a close look at the Federal Trade Commission building should see the common style pretty quickly. I don't really get where the connection to Socialist Realism comes from, since the latter tends toward - naturally - more realistic works. There may be a spillover into earlier Soviet art movements by the precursors of Deco, but Socialist Realism superseded that.

However, Art Deco is pretty closely associated with Fascist art styles, which is probably what the commission members were actually recalling. Since the USSR is pretty much lumped in with all the right-wing totalitarian states in the minds of the stupid, the people who object to this statue probably just made a couple of bad assumptions and ended up equating Soviet art and Art Deco.

Gerald Tarrant · Post by **Gerald Tarrant** » 2008-05-11 04:10pm

I kind of prefer this one

from Here

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2008-05-11 05:27pm

However, Art Deco is pretty closely associated with Fascist art styles, which is probably what the commission members were actually recalling.

Yeah, I got my despots mixed up.
It looks somewhat like something Arno Breker would do.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-05-11 05:32pm

Flagg wrote:The statue looks like it would be at home standing aside to Josef Stalin or Saddam Hussein. There's a difference between looking "confrontational" and looking "despotic".

How exactly does someone "look" despotic? Unless you associate certain poses with certain regimes I'm having trouble picturing it.