Which ones are yours? Anyway I thought that statement could apply to the entire species.
(I hate you for being the first one to post what I came in to post).
Yeah, he looks like Bobba Fett finally got to him.
ETA: the apparent racism in the outrage over the statue is so typical, it’s funny.
I can pretend to be surprised if you like, but this is not accurate. The committee did did not say anything about the sculpture looking Asian. In asking for a redesign it said “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed sculpture recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries,” so you have kind of a point there - they objected to the style of the sculpture - but not because they found it a Communist plot to make MLK look Chinese. I am not sure what the point of such a plot would have been. The sculpture is based on a photo and I’ll grant King looks a lot sterner in the sculpture than in the photo. I’m not sure why the artist made those choices, but it’s artistic license, not dishonesty and you could probably argue they make for a more interesting sculpture in a larger landscape as opposed to a fully contained photo. Of course if you look at the photo of King and the statute it’s also hard to deny that the statue looks a lot like the guy in the picture and not like Mao.
Not any more.
I’ve been giggling at this line for the past five minutes.
Okay. Let’s tackle a few issues in turn.
Whether Dr. King’s family is happy with the monument shouldn’t affect our own feelings toward it. We all have the freedom to have our own opinion on the subject.
The King family might be biased by matters other than simple familial pride - they have demanded over $800,000 from the memorial foundation for the right to use King’s quotations in their fundraising, plus additional management fees over the years. Quite a number of commentators have found these demands unseemly.
To my eye, untrained as it is, the statue does tend toward a Socialist Realism that is not popular in monumental work in this country - for good reason. When the CFA made their comment about statues being torn down they were spot on.
Martin Luther King Jr. deserves a memorial - certainly a better one than this. But since our country rarely builds decent memorials anymore (the FDR and WWII memorials were similar artistic disasters, as is the Flight 93 memorial) he won’t get one. And that is a shame.
Only a select few think this thing to be ‘controversial’. But because of some loud-mouthed artist in Denver, it’s ‘controversial’ in the press.
I’m not complaining the sculptor is Chinese (which I did mention originally in my first post). I don’t appreciate, however, that he chose to make Dr. King more “Chinese looking.” The sculptors original Bust of Dr. King was rejected because it was completely “Chinese looking”( as the committee put it). ** Why did he even do a bust of a “Chinese” Dr. King originally? ** He said he “toned-down” the Chinese appearance from his first try in this addition. Why was he even trying to make Dr. King look Chinese?
Why not make Dr. King look like he actually did in life? He was African-American. Why not do a straight sculpture of him without a quasi Chinese appearance?
And for those who said the face looks just like Dr. King and nothing like Chairman Mao? Ask any artist or plastic surgeon, for that matter, if they think it looks like Dr. King (it vaguely does). Ask anyone who knows bone structure. I think anyone could walk up to a smaller version of the statue and without it being marked as the Dr. King Memorial not know who it was. And I am very aware of what Dr. King looked like from memory.
I pointed out that the upper lip, jaw, and forehead do not match. King had almond eyes but not to the degree the statue has. The eyes match ALL the Mao monuments in China almost exactly (grab some calipers and measure it).
As far as the family liking it? What can the family say now? It’s ugly?? Tear it down?? They were on the committee, they were paid for they time and use of their fathers likeness, the Chinese government gave 15 million to the project–what would they say now??? They have to say that it’s “nice.” They agreed through the whole process to take Chinese money and approve the designs along the way. The Chinese government is so proud that the sculpture who did so many Chairman Mao statues now has a enormous statue in Washington DC. Why did China give so much money to the project??
Oh, and even if the family approves or says they like it? The isn’t usually a major issue for anyone’s monument… the family is not paying for the monument. It goes in the city of Washington DC not their backyard. The family isn’t commissioning a sculpture. The family didn’t give a dime. The family was even PAID to use his likeness (which has never been done before for ANY monument in Washington).
As for the Russian avant garde cubist style of the statue? I mentioned the Russians and Chinese communists use this style in every statue. It is not a racial issue. Mainland China and the USSR are normally associated with communism in any history book.
I think Skald is speaking from a perspective of having already conquered the entire planet (we just don’t know it yet), so “his people” who can be idiots consists of all of humanity, possibly less the ISS astronauts.
I’d say the Christian depictions of Jesus and Mary are more ethno-centric than Lei’s statue being ‘Asian’.
I don’t think the monument is controversial - I think it is poorly conceived and executed.
Unless, of course, saying so is controversial.
Is that the one where he is in a karate pose with a flying guillotine hurled towards him?
I looks like King has just completed the “Long March”.
Its a perfect example of Stalinist “cult of the individual” art.
Would someone who made a statue of Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin or even Saddam Hussein be allowed to sculpt in America? And this is not a Godwin as Mao killed just as many people as either Hitler or Stalin.
Shouldn’t the main consideration for a work of art like that be who is the best sculptor, not their race or nationality?
I’d be greatly surprised if he wasn’t.
“Allowed to sculpt”? Of course. It’s a free country.
Chosen for a major project like this, of a much-honored and respected American? Well, probably not.
He didn’t make him more Chinese looking.
Please show me someone from the committee saying this. I tried to find this myself (by searching for things like King statue + “Chinese looking”) and they just brought me back to this thread.
OK, now I doubt you know anything about art history and plastic surgery.
Look, I want out of the debate. I changed my mind, I love the statue. If anyone had followed the original designing from 2007 on, they would have noticed that in many newspapers the Federal arts commission really didn’t like the statue. The commission didn’t like the first models (or even later models) and requested frequent changes. I don’t think anyone on that commission really even liked the FINAL statue but I’m sure they are happy that it is done. Most seemed to have preferred Ed Dwight’s designs.
For me, LOVE IT!
Here are some old newspapers articles:
From the Minneapolis Post -:
‘Then, the first models of the MLK sculpture, unveiled in 2007, were criticized because some felt they made King look Asian. The models were later revised, and now there seems to be little concern about the statue’s look.
Even Martin Luther King III appreciates the likeness.
“I’ve seen probably 50 sculptures of my dad, and I would say 47 of them are not good reflections — that’s not to disparage an artist,” the younger King said. “This particular artist — he’s done a good job.”’
Washington Post:
“According to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the 28-foot-tall statue of King now being prepared on a work site in China, for eventual placement in a memorial on the Mall, doesn’t fill that bill. As reported yesterday, the commission, which has final say in all such projects, recently concluded that the latest model for the sculpture evokes the socialist realist art of Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China – “a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries,” as the commission’s chairman put it in a letter to the foundation raising funds for the memorial…As planned, the letter adds, the statue of King "would be unfortunate and inappropriate as an expression of his legacy….Chinese dissident *Harry Wu *in a New York Times article last September. There’s a reason the Chinese authorities favor Lei and the moribund artistic movement he represents: Their art speaks of immovable authority and unquestioned propaganda sent down from on high. Is that the language that we want King’s monument to speak? ”
Washington Post:
“A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too “confrontational” and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states….Commission members said the sculpture “now features a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character,” Luebke wrote. They “recommended strongly that the sculpture be reworked, both in form and modeling” and cited "precedents of a figure emerging from stone in the works of sculptors such as Michelangelo and Rodin. The commission objected to what it perceived as the loss of the subtle way King seemed to be coming out of the stone in the drawings, Luebke said…Ed Dwight of Denver, has said Lei’s models do not resemble King.”
**
USA Today:**
“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.”
Once again, I LOVE this statue! We could not have done better in a million years.
Bowing to external pressure and consensus. Just what King would have wanted. They just have to chisel the balls off the statue.