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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31249 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Don’t love the statue. It feels like they wanted a unique MLK statue and just missed the mark. MLK’s memorial in the national mall is a a much more traditional monument and looks great, especially lit up at night.

Not sure one statue ties into a wider point on “The West”. Seems like most of our statues are just a guy on a horse or standing in a military uniform. Doesn’t seem like a sign of downfall to try out new styles even if this one turned out poorly.

We have these statues in Downtown Phoenix around the Herberger Theatre and the Science Museum, I think they look pretty okay. I also like the gigantic mirror in the Convention Center. I guess my point is that it's not all bad, maybe it's one of those cultural-folkways-genetics things and not simply "all modern art sucks."

MLK’s memorial in the national mall is a a much more traditional monument and looks great, especially lit up at night.

Oh dear. That is not true at all. That thing is ugly.

Perhaps the problem is that memorializing MLK other than with a street name is impossible.

What upsets me is that it feels like the artist got halfway through doing an amazing sculpture and someone came in and said "What are you doing? If you keep going like that it's going to look fantastic - cut it out with the good sculpting already!" so he just stopped and shipped it as is.

The unfinished part is referring back to Michelangelo's sculptures, so they are trying to do reference to "heroic classical sculpture", so I can forgive them for the unfinished look, the image arising part-way out of the stone.

The statue itself is not bad, if a little too reminiscent of Chinese Communist style, but it could be a lot worse. So for public art that is a memorial to a heroic figure, it gets a pass from me.

Have you been in person? The memorial as a whole just works in a way that isn't apparent in pictures. The white stone conjures up images of Mount Rushmore, subtly asking the viewer, "what would a modern Mount Rushmore look like?" but without taking on the virulent anti-imperialist tone all too prevalent in other artworks of the genre.

My ex said something similar when we saw it. Maybe I'm too enamoured with the image of the finished sculpture I have in my head.

Doesn’t seem like a sign of downfall to try out new styles even if this one turned out poorly.

Maybe try these experiments in Autodesk to see if they work before you cast them in immortal bronze and erect them eternally in a place of honor in the heart of the city.

Or at least open it up to see that they don't look like some guy carrying an armload of shit.

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