Comments on Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. Looks Kind of Uppity

Hmmm. While we're at it, can we add a few changes to Rushmore?

A 3 page article without pictures? Worthless!

The statue is totalitarian looking. I think a more humanistic representation would be better. (I am not a trained critic or play one on tv.)

Just get out and let Dr. King have the car. It's not worth losing your life over.

I think the commission is correct. The current version looks more Kim-Jong-Il than MLK.

Whoa--I clicked on the picture, prepared to be outraged by this, and after seeing it, my first thought was

pudgy Lenin.

Why are we out sourcing publicly funded art to the Chinese??

"Commissioner Jose L. Galvez III said he thought the sculpture lacked a sense of King's power."

Bullshit. That sculpture radiates power.

I like the current design, it makes me think that he's watching over all the crazy fucks in Congress and the White House.

It really is a butt-ugly statue.

this was the kind of picture they wanted, right?

http://z.about.com/d/afroamhistory/1/8/M/R/martin_luther_king_gallery8.jpg

I think they should make the statue bigger and put GWB's head beneath his foot.

Their comments are poorly phrased, but they're basically right. That statue sucks.

This is a no-win situation. I would have used an image reminiscent of him giving his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

I think the problem a liberal like me would have with the quote is in the arts commission's sloppy choice of "confrontational," as the word to describe what's wrong with the statue. The folded arms suggest that, perhaps, but what they should have said was "as art it's laughably dated(HEROIC REALISM? For crap's sake....)and as as a political statement, it suggests an unfortunate deference to just the sort of oppression that Dr. King gave his life to fight."

He looks so...disappointed, and angry with us.

Dr. King's statue should be confrontational. That's the whole Goddamn point. It would be a great insult to his memory to construct a statue that's comfortably banal, probably as great an insult as most public MLK day events, where we hear platitudes mouthed from podiums to assuage our collective white guilt so we can pretend for one day that we give a shit about black people.

The thing is, I want a confrontational, intimidating statue of Dr. King staring at Capitol Hill 24/7. I think it would do a lot of good.

I agree with Greg.

Ahhh! Public art and politics.