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See the original image at washingtonpost.com

U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked

washingtonpost.com — 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.

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  • whoreable, on 05/10/2008, -5/+44So now we are outsourcing the fabrication of statues of our civil rights leaders to China? WTF is wrong with us?
    Also WTF is "A powerful federal arts commission" ? Does that mean there are other less powerful federal arts commissions?
    • JettaMan, on 05/10/2008, -13/+4This is appropriate that Communist China would be making a statue of a Communist sympathizer. It will be eight feet taller than the Lincoln statue? This is nuts. We don't even have a day dedicated to the truly great men who conceived this country, yet we have a GOVERNMENT ENFORCED day for MLK. Does any other American have a day named after him? MLK is not that great. Yay, he had good speech writers and he read the words. Getting rid of forced segregation was fine, but making forced integration violated freedom of association in teh constitution. He was not a great visionary.
      • JoeVet, on 05/10/2008, -1/+6So sad to see they still exist.
      • whoreable, on 05/10/2008, -1/+2"We don't even have a day dedicated to the truly great men who conceived this country"
        It is called Presidents Day dumbass.
      • Rednik2011, on 05/10/2008, -1/+3I bet you support Ron Paul. Go suck a *****.
    • b3owulf, on 05/10/2008, -1/+4I thought MLK wanted equality? I don't picture him saying, "I don't a chinese man making a statue of me."
      • Jonjonr6, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1Not the point douche. The statue could just as well be made in the USA by the people who he most directly affected and are admired by.
  • senatorpjt, on 05/10/2008, -3/+61Even our national monuments are made in China now. Awesome.
    • DavidtheDuke, on 05/10/2008, -1/+4Bet Martin didn't mean *that* when he said he had a dream.
      • Jonjonr6, on 05/11/2008, -0/+0"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its Greed,... and sell out faster than Tickle-Me-Elmo at a Walmart!"
    • jerbaker, on 05/10/2008, -7/+6Hey, it's better than when they were made in France right (see Statue of Liberty)? /s
      • senatorpjt, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. The US Government didn't hire the French to build it.
    • thelastcivilian, on 05/10/2008, -0/+4Trojan Horse!
    • TheSabre, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5The memorial isn't being made in China. The centerpiece sculpture is being made by a well-known Chinese sculptor. Your statement would be like saying the Louvre was made in China because I.M. Pei designed the glass pyramid.
  • greevar, on 05/10/2008, -2/+11How depressing...
  • prompel, on 05/10/2008, -15/+11Well, the US is looking more and more totalitarian every day, so I think it fits.

    But of course, we can't have Martin Luther King Jr. looking bigger than Abraham Lincoln! Hmmm, how about we put him in chains?
    • p0s3r, on 05/10/2008, -9/+7And now we have the race card. This story is now complete.
      • jerbaker, on 05/10/2008, -4/+2Ya, because it wasn't there before.
      • sonofblacula, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2While I agree that prompels comment was idiotic, you can't really discuss Dr. King without the race issue popping up...
        • ZenMojo, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Dr. King? Didn't he provide us with cheap and affordable access to boxing matches? *****, you'd think he wasn't a black leader or something.
  • JasonCox, on 05/10/2008, -15/+4One of the little known facts about MLK is that he was a Socialist and some of the things he wanted to see done in this country post-civil rights movement would have made this statue spot on. I watched an interview with some of his friends and colleagues last month and I learned alot about the man that they don't teach you in school.

    Now don't get me wrong, MLK was a great man, but we seem to know more about the 'mythical' MLK (the "I have a dream" MLK) and not the real man.
    • jerbaker, on 05/10/2008, -1/+8What does MLK being a socialist have to do with anything? If you found out Jesus was a socialist would you stop being a Christian? The messenger has no bearing on the message. Even if Hitler had come to the United States and delivered a message that we should stop hanging black people from trees and banning them from restaurants, the message would still be true.
      • eigenweasel, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1"If you found out Jesus was a socialist would you stop being a Christian?"

        I did.
      • NorthKorea, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1the complaint was about the statue resembling "social realist" art of authoritarian countries. it's the only kind of art we have here in north korea, that's for damn sure.....

        whether or not MLK was a socialist is really a moot point i think.... besides, social realist art is really the best kind of art for huge monumental statues and national-level, international-level figures... do you really want some kind of avant-garde or weird-ass impressionistic sculpture? no, you want to see the man, and if he looks a bit pissed, well, that's probably realistically how he looked alot of the time during his life....
    • sonofblacula, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Was not.
      10char
    • whiteyx, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5Jason, I think you may be missing the point. It's not about who a man is, but what he does to change the world. There are a handful of people who've changed the planet in the sense that MLK has for the better.

      So what he liked to sleep around? The good definitely outweighs the bad in his case.
    • apetrie, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Oh no! The socialist bogeyman strikes again! Grow up.
  • Twenty, on 05/10/2008, -3/+21My comment didn't go through, but if you actually read the article, the Chinese sculptor was selected because of his experience with large-scale works like this.
    Also, it's not as if King wasn't confrontational. He was leading a movement to disturb the comfortable white culture of American coming out of the 50s, of course he was confrontational. Remember a few months back when political analysts were talking about the "Santa Claus"-ification of King? He was a very imposing figure. It's unfortunate that the federal arts commission has so much say when it comes to deciding on the direction of this work, but they are commissioning it after all.
    • foofightrs777, on 05/10/2008, -0/+8Thank you! King advocated DIRECT, but non-violent, resistance to all forms of racial and social oppression. By the end of his life he had become even more confrontation to the "ruling powers" as he had shifted his goal from civil rights to universal human right. Just take a look at his "Beyond Vietnam" speech:

      "A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."


      There is much more to king than the Disney-ified view we get today. He would be shocked and appalled to see the course our nation has continued on.
  • thejerm, on 05/10/2008, -7/+1It does look similar to statues of KJ.
  • jerbaker, on 05/10/2008, -8/+8You know how I can tell this is the work of neocons? Because it's inconsistent. Before you digg me down, consider this: You will usually hear conservatives belittling the interpretation of artistic works. They like to pass around anecdotes about paintings from a three year old being mistaken for fine art, or something similar. As soon as the art is about something they care about, they change their tune. Now, the subtle stance of a statue is really a socialist plot? God, when will that generation just die so we can have a sane country?
  • nekama, on 05/10/2008, -5/+2This one's going to have to be given a full security search when it gets "imported" given its origins in slave-labor China.
  • thewump, on 05/10/2008, -7/+1And a bigger shlong?
  • celotil, on 05/10/2008, -2/+9Goddamn ***** fools.

    The people need regular confrontation, especially in politics, lest they become lazy and too set in a system that hasn't been pushed and tested.

    Ideas are like cement. If you don't stir cement it sets hard, and you can't add materials later, the same with ideas. If I have one set of morals, of ideas, and concepts, the longer I live them then the longer, and harder, it takes to introduce new concepts and new ideas later in life - often needing a little "chipping away" of the old ideas.

    Besides, it's a ***** statue for crying out loud. It's not meant to change or conform to current affairs, it's supposed to represent the subject as he was at the time, to be a reminder of what life was like then so we can than pick whether to emulate that life or avoid it.

    Do people hang around Special Schools in order to collect political and social activists or what?
  • rjwusa, on 05/10/2008, -4/+4Your taxpayer dollars hard at work.
  • sonofblacula, on 05/10/2008, -2/+12I love the original statue. He should look confrontational, he's Martin Luther King. He confronted a hostile establishment, and did so unarmed. That dude had massive, veiny, ANGRY balls.
  • krnldmp, on 05/10/2008, -1/+3The only thing in this case reminscent of political art in totalitarian states is government trying to dictate it.
  • Filter, on 05/10/2008, -0/+6I like it because he stands with strength and dignity. Although, they should have hired young black artists to build it instead of sending yet more work to China. The fact that it is built by the Chinese just ruins all meaning.
    • DDRSkata, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1Why? If he was egotistical enough to dream of having a giant statue, he would've dreamed of people of many races working together to carve it.
  • MadN, on 05/10/2008, -4/+3"reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states."
    You don't say?
    I wonder what MLK would say about the "Patriot" act; or the "patriots" behind Abu Ghraib?
    The wire tapping?
    The genocide of the Iraqi Bath party?
    I think MKL would be very "confrontational" today.
    • foofightrs777, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2MLK was very confrontational at the end of his life, nevermind a hypothetical today.

      Look at his Speech "beyond Vietnam" which was given exactly one year prior to his assasination:

      "A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
  • NeoCortex, on 05/10/2008, -0/+3Statue of a civil rights leader being designed in China. I think my part of my brain just exploded.
  • clickwir, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Good, that looks awful.
  • Blakechi, on 05/10/2008, -1/+3I must admit that it does indeed look "Leninish". Please redo.
  • Azselendor, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5"The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "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," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April."

    LMFAO! They just compared King to Saddam. What's next, they'll compare Reagan to Jesus?
    • nekama, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2>What's next, they'll compare Reagan to Jesus?
      That's what the business world already does.
    • b3owulf, on 05/10/2008, -2/+1They didn't compare Kind to Saddam, dumbass - they compared a statue of King to an entire genre of Social Realist statues - and they are quite right in the similarities.
  • shiftclick, on 05/10/2008, -1/+3"A POWERFUL federal arts commission"... Seriously. Buried.
  • Nerys, on 05/10/2008, -1/+1"too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states" My are our politicians feeling a bit remorseful over the fact that we ARE in fact headed toward a totalitarian state of affairs? Or is it just a simple desire to hide this fact from the people?
  • nomelitas, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Rework it so that it is built by someone in this country. The slave labor in that country takes away his message.
  • JoeVet, on 05/10/2008, -1/+2"My image of Dr. King is of him leaning forward in anticipation, holding his chin or raising his arm," rather than standing with his arms folded, Commissioner Michael McGill said." Artistic expression obviously counts more for the government bureaucrat than for the actual artist.
  • fuzionmuse, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Told ya so...
    When they said it was being done in China, I predicted it would go wrong a LONG time ago...
  • ZenMojo, on 05/10/2008, -3/+1Confrontational and Communist? *****. MLK Jr. was a Socialist.
  • WTFppl, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1I see a glint of hope in the statues eyes, upon Dr. Kings lips is a smirk of devotion and dedication, his arms are crossed with that of intrigue, while his suite and up-right posture say diligent and motivated. This statue is the essence of the pure beauty and truth that Dr. King showed himself to be, "a man of understanding".
    Wrote by a white guy?
  • ericd, on 05/10/2008, -1/+1I'm sure Jabba the Hut would pay good money for it just as it is.
  • Wittyfish, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1Translation: White people are uncomfortable
  • whalt, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1Looks like Mao Tse King.
  • imnabc, on 05/21/2008, -0/+0I understand the interest and pride in supporting an American artist to sculpt the Dr. King memorial statue, but the negative China bashing comments are offensive and unnecessary. Lei Yixin was chosen as the sculptor based on his talent, not the color of his skin. What happened to perpetuating Dr. King's message of promoting equality and diversity? It's a very sad day when folks are making such narrow-minded and discriminatory comments about the maker of Dr. King's statue just based upon his ethnicity. These were the very things he fought so hard against.
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