The new statue depicting the interlocking limbs of Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, is an artistic and civic failure. The photograph from which it takes inspiration could be an iconic image of the Kings. But limbs, unattached to whole bodies, make for an uncanny sculptural subject. One must be told what it is to make any connection to Martin Luther King Jr. This has led some members of the extended King family to acerbically remark that it looks phallic. Notably, this is not the case with our most famous monuments, like the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Nor with any of the hundreds of sculptures of men on horseback.
This is the inevitable clash of an artistic culture that prizes provocation and individual creative genius with the need for civic statuary to be recognizable, iconic, and ennobling. Now we keep getting artworks meant to be statements about art itself, private jokes, or, at best, offerings intended to “challenge” our perceptions. Boring. What a waste.