Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial | Boston Common | Downtown

[MjolnirMan]

Kind of like the reactions elicited by lots of significant art.

A very valid position echoed by one of the top comments on the major subreddit r/pics, where the picture of the statue recently received "not safe for work" censoring:

 

[DBM]

the irish famine memorial is just normal statues and it's probably the worst piece of public art I've ever seen.
At least this is interesting.

A great piece from the Irish Times, when the Irish Famine Memorial was first unveiled, absolutely savaging its aesthetics for their syrupy, preachy, Disneyfied, simplistic insulting-ness:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/1m-famine-memorial-a-monument-to-kitsch-1.169414

"The actual [Irish Famine Memorial] monument, the permanent mark of this global, maturing Irish identity, is a dreadful piece of kitsch. Beautifully crafted kitsch, certainly. Expensive kitsch - it cost a million dollars - but kitsch nonetheless. It shows not an ability to face our past, but a complete inability to imagine it. As a memorial to the dead, it offers pious cliches and dead conventions. As an effort to confront a national trauma, it shows a depressing immaturity. The monument is the work of Robert Shure, an American sculptor who does the kind of heroic but realistic statues which governments love to commission."

No matter what, the new MLK Statue ain't that, praise be.

 

[Hufer]

behold "The Dick Holder"
I cannot understand the fact that the sculpture was created on computer 3D models & small scale sculpture models PRIOR to its approval & construction, so the artist & everyone involved in its creation could have noticed, realized & countered the "controversial angle/view that everybody is talking about, so regarding the harsh criticisms- It's not about "interpretation" or "reaction" or "open-mindness " but rather INTENTION, which is what the city approved and went for. Malice? may be the judge of it.

 

[Hufer]

I mean... There's definitely precedent for a memorial to have an terrible first impression but then come to be seen as something remarkable: the Vietnam Memorial in DC was the subject of considerable controversy at the time of it's unveiling but now is one of America's favorite pieces of architecture. I haven't been to the common yet, but I think we'll come to appreciate it.

there is an abysmal difference between the Vietnam Memorial & this MLK statue, since one does NOT have clear figurative human biological reference of sexual organs in display.
compare apples to apples i.e Vietnam Memorial vs Berlin's memorial of the murdered Jews of Europe

 

[MjolnirMan]

Of course they realized the statue looked simultaneously like Coretta Scott King's hands displaying a phallus or a turd, or a person performing fellatio (depending on the angle). They clearly went ahead with this design on purpose, because good public art gets people talking about it and freely providing their own interpretations and perspectives. I think the people of Boston will really warm up to "The Armpits" (one of the more appropriate nicknames I saw online) over the next few centuries. The strangers I overheard mocking it at the grocery store today are probably just Reddit trolls.

 

[SlothofDespond]

I saw someone online describe the visual as hands presenting a yam. Their mind is surely more wholesome. And look at that, more interpretation!

 

[Beantropolis]

Embrace... the D!

Looking forward to seeing the countless forced perspective photos in front of this, à la the Leaning Tower of Pisa, posted online in the future.

 

[kingofsheeba]

I saw someone online describe the visual as hands presenting a yam. Their mind is surely more wholesome.

Sweet Potato Pie comes to mind. And I ain’t thinking nothing wholesome.

 

[393b40]

"Hands jerking off a poo" has been my favorite on Reddit so far.

 

[Equilibria]

I appreciate the need for online dirty humor - it's genuinely a required part of any public art representing organic forms - but none of this comes through it person. It looks like exactly what it is. They even rendered jewelry and cuffs to clearly convey that these people are clothed.

 

[stefal]

 

[stellarfun]

....It was Sigmund Freud who let the cat out of the bag. Although Freud did not include obelisks in the extensive and imaginative catalog of phallic symbols — “things that are long and up-standing” — that occupies many pages of both his “Interpretation of Dreams” and “Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis,” he might as well have. For he did include tree trunks, along with knives, umbrellas, water-taps, fountains, extensible pencils, and zeppelins. In a rare moment of interpretive unanimity, Carl Friedrich Jung concurred, specifically noting the obelisk’s “phallic nature” in his “Psychology of the Unconscious.”

The 20th-Century Obelisk, From Imperialist Icon to Phallic Symbol

Amid all the imperial aspiration, wooly-minded New Age mythologizing, and pure unadulterated commerce, the obelisk stands tall.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

The highly visible Bunker Hill Monument and the Washington Monument are obelisks., defining the primacy of the priapus for all who gaze upward.

 

[found5dollar]

“Getting roasted on reddit,” is one of those negative space insults that makes me assume that this sculpture really is a masterpiece.

It's not just reddit trolls.
"Seneca Scott, a community organizer in Oakland, California, and cousin of Scott King, told CNN the statue was insulting to his family."

A new monument dedicated to MLK and Coretta Scott King sparks debate | CNN

Backlash ensued soon after a monument meant to honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King’s legacy in Boston was unveiled.

amp.cnn.com

 

[Charlie_mta]

It's not just reddit trolls.
"Seneca Scott, a community organizer in Oakland, California, and cousin of Scott King, told CNN the statue was insulting to his family."

A new monument dedicated to MLK and Coretta Scott King sparks debate | CNN

Backlash ensued soon after a monument meant to honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King’s legacy in Boston was unveiled.

amp.cnn.com

If getting attention was the goal, the sculpture is certainly doing that. Me personally, I wish they had put up a nice, well done, more traditional sculpture. But we seem to be living in an ugly age, and so on that level it is appropriate.

 

[stick n move]

Yet in the same article:

“But Martin Luther King III said on Monday he was grateful to be able to see a statue representing his parents' love story and their partnership. While some people have negative opinions about the monument, he told CNN's Don Lemon on Monday he liked it.

"I think that's a huge representation of bringing people together," King said. "I think the artist did a great job. I'm satisfied. Yeah, it didn't have my mom and dad's images, but it represents something that brings people together."

 

[DZH22]

Besides reddit, it has also been (mostly) skewered on boston.com and bostonglobe.com.

Here's a national article I just found too:

MSN

www.msn.com

"Outrage and mockery erupt over ‘obscene’ $10m MLK statue erected in Boston."

 

[MjolnirMan]

It's pretty dire when The Babylon Bee, a satire page similar to The Onion but with a conservative Christian bent, gets some good shots in:

 

[stefal]

If it was a traditional statue of MLK nobody would be talking about it, good or bad.

 

[HenryAlan]

If it was a traditional statue of MLK nobody would be talking about it, good or bad.

Exactly. And it is of very little use if people don't talk about it.

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

There’s certainly the one bad angle from which to view it, but honestly in person it wasn’t the primary way that you would typically see and experience it. The majority of views around the sculpture and within it are impressive.

Also, there was a good number (maybe majority) of intl’ tourists visiting it, which I think is a cool way for people to begin to associate MLK with Boston. Honestly I never knew that he had history here.