Posted on 08/22/2011 11:25:45 PM PDT by newzjunkey
The 30ft-tall statue, which forms the centrepiece of a $120 million (£73 million), four-acre memorial to Dr King, opened to the public on Monday on the National Mall in Washington. It is the only memorial on the Mall that does not honour a president or fallen soldiers.
Standing in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the statue shows Dr King emerging from a mountain of Chinese granite with his arms crossed and is called The Stone of Hope.
However, there has been controversy over the choice of Lei Yixin, a 57-year-old master sculptor from Changsha in Hunan province, to carry out the work. Critics have openly asked why a black, or at least an American, artist was not chosen and even remarked that Dr King appears slightly Asian in Mr Lei's rendering.
Mr Lei, who has in the past carved two statues of Mao Tse-tung ...
More than 150 granite blocks, weighing some 1,600 tons, were then shipped from Xiamen to the port of Baltimore, and reassembled by a team of 100 workmen, including ten Chinese stone masons brought over specifically for the project. …
He has also prepared a bronze bust of Barack Obama which he intends to gift to the president. …
The statue, meanwhile, will be 11ft taller than the statues in the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. It is unclear how much money was saved by making it in China.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
A clunky eyesore compared to the other memorials on the Mall. It looks like a statue from a communist nation, over-sized and tasteless. And a 450’ wall?
“Critics have openly asked why a black...”
...kind of flies in the face of “I have a dream” doesn’t it?
And it looks that way. The instant I saw the photo on Drudge, that's what I thought of: "same style as MST sculptures". Hurm.
[Martin Luther King memorial...]
“Not that I condone violence,” but, have we ever wondered why we strike cords in the likes of McVeigh, Breivik, and breeds? A question I sometimes ask: What about those of us who worked our way up the social ladder rather than resorting to to violence to achieve it? Where are the recognition [that peaceful hard working folks] like us are due? Why don’t we for example have a Mennonites Day, a Jehovah Day, or, an Oregon Trail Memorial Day, memorials to groups who built the country peacefully hard work honesty and sacrifices? Where are the credits that they are due?
<>Martin</s> Mao Luther King goes to the Mall
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