MLK Memorial

18May08

The US Fine Arts Commission doesn’t like the design for the new Martin Luther King memorial sculpture because it looks confrontational and reminiscent of totalitarian imagery. I’m not sure I agree that’s it’s a “problem”, but I can certainly see why the U.S. Fine Arts commission thinks that it looks too confrontational/communist.

It is the second time in recent months that the memorial to the slain civil rights leader has come under fire. Last year, critics complained after a Chinese sculptor known for his monumental works of figures such as Mao Zedong was selected to create King and other elements of the memorial in China.

The $100 million memorial, which is being built largely with private donations by the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, is planned for a crescent-shaped four-acre site among Washington’s famed cherry trees on the northwest shore of the basin. Construction is expected to start this year and end next year.

The US Fine Arts Commission is like the neighborhood homeowner association, nothing gets built without their say so. I’ll forgo arguing that there’s nothing especially wrong with a statue of MLK that stylistically looks communist, and instead pose two different issues I see with US Fine Arts Commission’s actions.

1) If making memorials reminiscent of totalitarian imagery is really unacceptable then they shouldn’t have accepted the designs for the World War II Memorial that opened 2004. It very much looks like something Kim Jong-il would have built.

2) It sure seems asking them to redesign the statue now is a bit too late. As you can see in the link above they’ve already curved out most of the statue. Given the difficulty they’ve had funding the MLK memorial, it’s really weak to make them redesign the statue and spend millions extra dollars.

If I had been involved in selecting the design for MLK statue, I wouldn’t have approved it for the same reasons the US Fine Art Commission doesn’t like it now. But now that’s so close to being completed really doesn’t seem fair force them to make changes.

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Tags: Martin Luther King, MLK Memorial, Martin Luther King Statue, Martin Luther King Memorial, US Fine Art Commission