Under the headline "Unhappy with 'Confrontational' Image, U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked (The Washington Post, 05-09-2008, page 1)... Michael Ruane reports that the seven-member U. S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks there is something wrong with the model of Dr. King being sculpted in China. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial will be the last project on the National Mall in Washington, DC and the only one honoring a Black American. By law, as the Post points out, "no project like the memorial can go forward without approval from the commission" which advises the government on public design and aesthetics in the capital.
The Secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, Thomas E. Luebke, an architect sent a letter to the Martin Luther King National Memorial Project Foundation and the Regional Director of the National Park Service, National Capital Region (Joseph M. Lawler) on April 25, 2008. In that letter Luebke said that "the Commision members found that the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries." In other words, right now, Dr. King is being constructed to look like a political figure like Mao or some other dictator.
Because the Roma Design Group's original work approved by the Commission did not include Dr. King emerging gently out of a Stone of Hope, the Commission is now concerned that Dr. King is being pictured in a "confrontational" full-length pose and appears to be "affixed to the surface of the Stone of Hope." Using very strong words, the Commission wrote that "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. We recommend strongly that the sculpture be reworked, both in form and modeling."
That sounds to this Blogger and other critics that the Commission wants CEO Harry Johnson and his group to start over. And that is exactly what thegibsonreport.blogspot.com has been calling for since the summer of 2007. Arguing that there were other problems besides the ethnicity of the chosen sculptor, this site noted FIVE FATAL FLAWS: (1) the selection process (flawed & biased); (2) a non-original model (sculptor is working from a picture, (3) historical inaccuracies (imagine a Babe Ruth statue swinging with the opposite hand). Such is the case when the Chinese sculptor takes "artistic license" by flipping the picture/negative so Dr. King could use his left hand to conveniently point to writing on one side of the stone rather than the other; (4) using a pose rejected by citizens in Rocky Mount, NC in 2003 (though Ohio sculptor Erik Blome correctly showed Dr. King holding a pen in his right-hand, citizens rejected the cross-armed pose because they said it was stiff and made Dr. King look arrogant). It should be noted that the statue was put in a warehouse and not initially put up as planned; (5) rejecting constructive criticism from professioral artists (earlier criticism from other sculptors and artistic advisors selected by the Memorial Foundation were booted or quit when they noted the Chinese sculptor's work looked more like a Communist leader than a spiritual leader).
There should be a congressional inquiry into the expensive outsourcing of such an important American project. The cost of sending 100 crates of granite to be assembled on the National Mall cut a whole lot of Americans out of work. We need to hear why the original Architect of Record was replaced with the Chinese sculptor that he had a hand in selecting to work under him.
Regardless of color, ethnicity, or religion... we all want Dr. King's memorial at the Tidal Basin to be an inspiring work of art. It is in that spirit that so many of us around the country have raised questions and concerns about questionable unilateral decisions about a national monument. Unlike the Statue of Liberty which was a gift, the King Memorial is this country's salute to an important man of non-violence.
It is our civic duty to voice serious concern, even if a project is privately funded, before the image of Dr. King is cast in granite in such a way that he looks like Eddie Murphy and assumes a stance that fails to capture the spirit of the drum major for peace. While the media typically looks for the sensational (a Chinese vs. Black sculptor), it is imperative that legislators and policy makers not get bogged down in that distraction.
Kudos to a federal panel for looking after the public interest and exercising its oversight duties.
The U. S. Commission on Fine Arts brilliantly captures the essence of the problem: Dr. King deserves better!
Hats Off to CFA for looking out for the interests of the American public. Too bad CFA became too sensitive to the fact that the Commission is all White AND refused to make the MLK Memorial Foundation really accountable in the public interest. In the end history will show that the CFA was right to object to an arrogant, confrontational depiction of Dr. King.
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