There is some commotion because the sculptor executing Washington’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is the Chinese artist Lei Yixin.
Lei Yixin is obviously a talented, world-renowned artist. Was his design vetted by peer review and found to be more moving and appropriate than that of other applicants? It appears so.
Questioning Lei Yixin’s fitness for this task due to his ethnic origin is beneath contempt and unworthy of further discussion. But it would be troubling if the under-funded Memorial organization is using a Chinese foundry to save a few dollars, with results not equal to those of a US art foundry.
There is a more fundamental issue. I remember a bronze statue of Gandhi that was planned for, as I recall, Mississippi. One of Gandhi’s descendants was asked what the Mahatma would have thought about it. His response: Gandhi would have hated it. He would have preferred investment in programs to help the poor become self-sufficient. I think Dr. King would have made the same choice.
August 25, 2007 at 1:47 am
It only takes a little research to discover that Lei Yixin’s design WAS NOT “vetted by peer review” AND that is the problem! In fact, he is shown in the Washington Post (8-15-07) using the same design American sculptor Ed Dwight used and even made small sculpted pieces of for major donors. If the process had been what Dr. King stood for – FAIR – it wouldn’t matter whether the final Sculptor of Record was Chinese, Greek, American, or anything else. Why use and then abuse Ed Dwight, an exemplary master sculptor (his work appears around the country) and former Astronaut trainee? The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation should do the right thing and pay him $143,000 immediately. That would as least be $11,000 more than what the group is now paying Lei Yixin. See http://www.thegibsonreport.today.com for full details and upcoming 9-18-07 New York fundraiser protest.
August 25, 2007 at 4:27 am
This is a lot messier than I thought. No peer-review, questions of possible copyright violation, and more.
Anyone contemplating a public art project should review the established Best Practices, starting at
http://www.americansforthearts.org/services/public_art_network/default_004.asp
August 27, 2007 at 9:34 pm
We don’t know each other, so allow me to introduce myself. I’m a 66 year old African American artist. My work is considered “socially conscious”. For 50 years I’ve created work that glorifies the beauty and culture of African American people. My work is in movies and on TV. I’m commissioned by organizations nationwide to create commemorative works including the Salute to Greatness Award presented by the King Center here in Atlanta.
I’m old enough to have witnessed Jim Crow, and I survived it. If you remember history you know African Americans are not native to this country. We’re not immigrants. We didn’t choose to come here. Our ancestors were brought by force. Up until this time our most indelible footprint in history has been that we are descendents of survivors of the horrendous institution known as American Slavery. Our names appear sporadically in history books, and every February our accomplishments are condensed into brief sentences for PR purposes.
That changed 8 years ago with the announcement that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—an African American—would be immortalized in a national monument in the capitol of the most powerful nation on this planet. African American History would be important to the world 365 days a year.
Through misguidance, ignorance and apathy, it was decided to hand the most incredible honor of sculpting the centerpiece of the monument to an artist famous for his statues of the mass murderer Mao Tse Tung from Chinese granite quarried using slave labor. Workers are not even provided proper masks to keep killing silica dust from their lungs. No granite company in the USA was allowed to bid on this project before it was outsourced to China.
In case you haven’t read or heard, Yixin did not win a competition. The Los Angeles Times reports him saying that he was napping in the grass when committee members found him. He had been recommended to them by his peers. The members asked if he would sculpt the monument without even seeing his work. Yixin said he did not know how big a project he’d agreed to work on until he saw the plans. “This is a great compliment to Chinese artists,” said Yixin, who is supported financially by the People’s Republic of China. What you may not know is that Yixin was originally hired as a subcontractor. A black artist, Ed Dwight, created the original models for the monument and Yixin was hired to take the models from 12 clay to 28 foot granite. When Yixin’s model was presented, Dwight wrote a 13 page critique, and the Foundation kicked him to the curb for causing a disturbance.
Remember this: King didn’t die. He was murdered. He was killed for leading a protest against injustices toward “colored” garbage collectors. It’s true his hope was that someday black people would have the same opportunities as everyone else. He wanted us to go to school together, attend the same churches, get the same pay for the same jobs. Yet here is our very first opportunity to display our culture and heritage in the first monument to an African American man and we’re being told we’re still not good enough. As far as the Foundation is concerned there’s nothing wrong with the monument being “Made In China.”
They’re wrong—for the sake of our nation, our history, and our children. African American people must be allowed to take the lead in this chance to honor our beloved hero. We care that someone who’s sculpted memorials to a murderer has been given the honor of sculpting King. We won’t allow someone who knows nothing about the Civil Rights Movement and nothing about what King stood for to have his named carved into Chinese granite in a monument to an African American & American national hero.
Gilbert Young
Lea Winfrey Young
And hundreds of others….
August 28, 2007 at 6:52 am
Black, white who cares? The real problem is that the sculptor chosen is a hack. His work is 100% cliche. There’s not an honest ounce of feeling in his work which is purely derived from a slavish sense of Chinese tradition which, under Communism has become one step beyond moribund: it is dead art worshipping dead politics. It is delusion. It is a monument to nothing. King was about freedom and only American artists since the war understands what that is. The Europeans have never understood what Pollock and Newman stood for and they never will. A for the Chinese, la-de-da-de-da. An American should have been chosen, black white or pink and purple polka-dotted.
May 9, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial project has entered a new phase of its troubled history. The Commission oversees art and architecture in much of the District of Columbia, and is the [...]