The first, unavoidable observation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial statue compels its rejection as dishonest art: Irrespective of any artistic aim—anywhere along the spectrum from verism to modern abstraction—the resulting work doesn’t represent the man in either body or spirit, neither the color of his skin nor the content of his character.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Kezee
The statue, by People’s Republic of China sculptor Lei Yixin, fails on each of the criteria critic Robert Hughes called “the often derided ‘phallic’ virtues of ambitious art.” Its limited emotional range suggests anything but nonviolent defiance. The figure glowers with arms crossed, gripping a clutch of paper, hands splayed with veins prominent, an angry lawgiver. Orator or New World Orderer? Lacking even the kinetic dimension of the better examples of agitprop, absent what Hughes might call formal vitality or material energy, it hulks inertly.
Its historical ambition is a political fabrication of socialist realism in the Soviet style; think of the much more arresting image of Stalin emerging with futurist movement from a stone row of soldiers in the statue in Prague destroyed in 1962—and remember with sadness the shamed Czech artist who committed suicide before its unveiling.
The semi bas-relief of the figure rising out of the stone as an earthen vessel—which at least avoids the distraction of shoes and cuffs added to those exaggerated trouser creases, buttons and lapels—creates a sense of the Golem-esque. King has neither a humble nor a kind, wise or brave visage; even Lei’s 2008 russet scale model was more recognizably the man and unavoidably more beloved, regardless of expression.
A triangular bottom-heaviness recedes toward the top, reminiscent of looming fascist art. As one anonymous critic of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts astutely observed, it “recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries.” Subliminal power of suggestion—as well as the militant mask and squinty eyes—surely nicknames this man Mao-Tse Luther King.
Hewn of off-white Chinese granite—a dubious choice—the artist builds scant visual contrast between figure and ground, which, according to its misbegotten title (the only reference to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech) suggests the “Stone of Hope” arising from the “Mountain of Despair.” As Maya Angelou complained, though she herself was on the committee that bears responsibility for the tendentious quote selections, the mashup inscription, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness” represents the polar opposite of what King said (“If you want to say I was a drum major, say I was a drum major for justice…”).
Likewise, the wrongheaded illiteralism that fashions King from the stone of hope ignores Christian context and betrays King’s plain meaning: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight; ‘and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’ This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
What caused King himself to despair was his relentless secularization and buttonholing by American media. He bemoaned to his friends the pattern that when he turned from the politics of racial equality to its font—its inextricable confluence with Christian duty and mission, indeed any mention of God—the cameras stopped rolling and the press couldn’t pack up fast enough.
The commemoration bears no sense of the Reverend King, the ordained Baptist minister, and but for King’s oblique references to sacred scripture, not a single mention of God or confession of faith is in any of the 10 inscriptions. Not a single quote represents King’s nonviolence, as in this one of countless examples, “I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” Yet the perpetrators of this re-figuration fraud find room for King quotes against the Vietnam War—why not just face him toward The Wall?—and for ecumenism, three square meals for all and developing a “world perspective” (when, even in King’s day, the United States had nothing to learn about racial justice from any nation on earth).
Those quotes cannot be blamed on Lei—a frequent sculptor of Mao—however ill-advised was his chisel for hire. Associating King by commissioned artist to a murderer of 50 to 70 million souls is analogous to paying Leni Riefenstahl for a film tribute to Father Kolbe. In Lei’s work is, to invert King’s admonition, the presence of tension and the absence of justice.
Finally, the work intentionally disassociates King from the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. So, to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, this disturbing monstrosity should be returned to its place of origin as a gift to China, a land of unceasing persecution of ministers and priests who languish in jail this very day for the crime of preaching the risen Christ. They need to be reminded of the Reverend King in any way, shape or form.
For all Martin Luther King, Jr. articles, please go to:
Belief with Wings
I Have a Nightmare
Virtual Deity
Crowd Pleaser
Stone Cold
