Ok... This Is A Pretty Fucking Awesome Pic !!!

:hi:

:kick:

I wish either you or I could have taken it!

Maybe someday I'll get to see that monument, and take my own pic...

He was such a great man...How disappointed he would be to see where our country is today...

and I love how the block in which MLK's figure is carved is 'pushed forward' from the rest of the stone.

Very cool.

The pieces in the back represent a a 'mountain'
and the MLK part that is pushed forward is 'the stone of hope' coming out of the mountain.

Pretty cool :)

MLK would have hated that this was outsourced. I'm sorry, but this is surreal. We have great artists in this country, and I'm sure one of them would have done this for the 100 million that was offered. Instead, they gave the commission to a Chinese artist. WTF?

That statue does not represent MLK, it represents everything he stood against. Taking jobs away from Americans, and probably using Chinese slave laborers on it? Does that sound like anything that MLK would advocate? If you think it does, then you better read up on the man.

zalinda

enterprise is DISGRACEFUL, for all the reasons you've stated.

Because I don't like it.

This is a drawing I did of him

:hi:

As someone who can barely draw a stick figure, I am ever in awe of people with such art talent.
It's very nice.

I bet there were a lot of cops who looked down on the civil rights marchers and fighters that way. Really, just make that a white cop in uniform holding a club. Maybe not the eyes, but the rest of the pose is similar to me.

Was this monument based upon anything actual or is it just sculptor's rendering?

Its so stern and cruel looking. Yuck!

which is just...insane. We have artists here who are twice as talented and need the work!

And I wonder if the people who built it really knew, or if they could really appreciate, what this man meant.

:wtf:

Maybe he should be posed with a happy high-five ???

:wtf:

How do you get your head through the door? :shrug:

:evilgrin:

:hi:

The eyes capture the sense of him being a visionary. His emerging from rock is for me extremely powerful.

who know something about Dr. King!

:puke:

Me no like! :puke:

The US Commission of Fine Arts has the ultimate say.

:banghead:

:beer:

:smoke:

I love the man, I love what he did for equality.

The good kind. Awesome photograph.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MLK_Stone_of_Hope_2.png



http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MLK_Stone_of_Hope.png#globalusage

photo attributes: NearTheZoo (Creative Commons License )

Thanks for being there and taking the pics. This gives me hope that people can do beautiful things - MLK, the artist that made the sculpture, and the person that captured it for us to admire.

All had a hand in making it something beautiful for me to witness.

The photographer at the wiki lives in DC and has an amusing profile:

"In Washington, DC -- literally near the Washington, D.C. zoo. (Some friends prefer to think my screen name means I am near Congress or the Pentagon.)"

But now it's there for all of us to journey to and see some day, along with so much other amazing historic treasure. I haven't been there since a kid (to tour and visit sites),except for the time I was day-dreaming coming back from the Chesapeake Bay a couple years ago, and managed to end up in DC driving around lost for an hour or so. NOT good if you're not familiar with the city, needless to say, lol. :silly:

For instance here is how the Chinese are depicting Mao Tse-tung these days.



The statue of MLK is a hideous parody of the actual man. === EPIC FAIL

BTW clean up your fucking foul fucking mouth.

Do you think George Washington would have approved of this



This is by Horatio Greenough the first offically commissioned
American Sculptor. Should he have been the last...alas not.

When a monument to Dr. King was first discussed for the mall, New orleans based sculptor John Scott mentioned he was interested in the project. He died in 2007, sort of broken hearted by Katrina, I suppose.

But I imagined there would be many American artists capable of making a good statue, such as Frederick Hart or even Seward Johnson.

In my dreams, Edmonia Lewis would be resurrected to do the statue. :D

Out of a mountain a despair, a stone of hope.

A stone of hope......can you imagine MLK saying something that stupid?

"This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. 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. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

My estimation of MLK is now permanently diminished. "I have
a dream" should have ended there before the man said too little
and too much at the same time.

Stone of Hope. So mundane that it doesn't even rise to
level of a platitude. Now it's carved in stone.

So much the pity. Maybe that is the tragedy of MLK. Capable of
rising oratory but when you read the words, there is nothing profound
there compared to Lincoln's Gettysburg address.

I repeat, 'stone of hope'. Say it to yourself and ask what that could
be at all inspiring about this flat footed metaphor.

The only thing wrong with the phrase is your inability or refusal to understand it.

Stones are hard, heavy, and strong, and can be used as building blocks, weapons, tools, etc. It's a message of optimism and progress in the face of, indeed as the result of, seemingly insurmountable opposition and hardship.

I find that mere image more inspiring than the whole of the Gettysburg Address, which is basically a glorified dedication.

in MLK's oratorical lapse in this particular case and that
it was included as part of a truly hideous piece of
public art.

"I have a dream" would have been more suitable
and less flat footed and contrived than "stone of hope"
which, frankly, just sounds silly.

I also like that it will speak to the greater message of King's, which was less about race than about fairness and equity, which will ring truer as the racial situation continues to gradually improve.

They probably could have found something more poignant, but I like it. I do agree with Maya Angelou that the paraphrasing of the "I was a drum major" line puts an arrogant-sounding twist on what he actually said, though. That's worth being upset about.

That would be my guess. The artist pretty clearly seems to have been trained in the mindset and art of the social realist traditions of communist China. It looks pretty bad and inappropriate to me.

The misquote was pretty bad, too.

I live for art and am an unofficial art historian.

The Lincoln sculpture is hardly 'crap'. I wonder what would please Monk06? Some Jeff Koons kitsch, maybe? :7 and teasing.

It's beautiful. If you don't like it, that's okay, but you cannot say that the artisanship is not gorgeous.

of the Rev. MLK, Jr.!

Of some random dude, fine; it's gorgeous.

when it dawned on me that no matter how massive and well done the memorial appears on the teevee screen, it must be awesome to see in person.

n/t

Sorry, I'm not impressed. No great resemblance to Dr. King. And there were American artists who could have done a memorial, who wanted to. And American workers who could have used the jobs.

BTW, the grand Lincoln Memorial (which did in fact resemble Abraham Lincoln) was carved from Georgia marble.

Dr. King was born in GA. Both GA and adjoining state of Alabama (most of Dr. King's early civil rights mission took place in Alabama) have quarries with some of the world's BEST marble and granite. The Chinese stone appears of an inferior grade to me. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to have used granite or marble from the American South? It had to be expensive to have shipped stone all the way from China when American stone could be shipped a relatively short way by rail.

Something is fishy about the choice of a Chinese artist, Chinese workers and even Chinese material to make a monument to our civil rights hero. I doubt Dr. King would have approved even if one of his kids claims he likes it.

On another thread I mentioned the sculpture echoes of the style of China's terracotta tomb warrior staues. Google images to see what I mean.