King looks like dictator in statue, critics say

WASHINGTON — Construction of the national Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial has been postponed after a federal commission likened its proposed sculpture to the art of totalitarian regimes.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which has the power of approval for such projects in the capital, has notified the memorial's planners that the "colossal scale" and static style of the planned 28-foot granite statue "recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries."

The panel also said that a clay model that has been built in China for the sculpture depicts the civil-rights leader, shown standing with his arms crossed, as too "confrontational," said Thomas Luebke, an architect and secretary of the arts commission, who summarized the objections in a letter April 17.

The project's chief architect, Ed Jackson Jr., huddled with advisers this week in Ann Arbor, Mich., to discuss ways to address the commission's objections before sculpting of the granite statue begins.

"We said: 'OK, this is what the commission said. How best can we achieve that and retain what we have accomplished thus far?' "

The statue is to be the centerpiece of the memorial, planned for a site near the Tidal Basin, between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.

Harry Johnson, president of the privately financed Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said Friday the construction would be delayed until an agreement is reached. Work was originally to begin this spring on the privately funded $100 million memorial, which had been scheduled for completion next year.

Johnson said the foundation has begun a "dialogue" with the designers, who include the Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin.

"We feel this is a tweaking process that will occur until the memorial is completed," Johnson said. He said the foundation would present revisions June 5 to the federal panel.

The King memorial has been authorized by Congress, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2006.

Its general design was approved by the seven-member federal commission that year, based on drawings that showed a more subtle image of King, from the waist up, as if he were emerging organically out of the rock, commission members said.

But since the drawings have been developed into detailed models, the vision has generated criticism.

Controversy is not new to national memorials. In recent years the building of the World War II memorial stirred sharp debate, as did the Vietnam War Memorial years earlier.

Some questioned the selection of a Chinese sculptor for the memorial. Critics said that an African-American artist, or any American, would have been preferable. At least one black sculptor, Ed Dwight of Denver, has said Lei's models do not resemble King.

The memorial foundation has said Lei is internationally renowned and was selected for his experience with large public sculptures.

The sense of confrontation in the sculpture is no coincidence. James Chaffers, one of the project's artistic consultants, said, "We see him ... as a warrior. We see him as a warrior for peace ... not as some pacifist, placid, kind of vanilla, but really a man of great conviction and strength."

Johnson chalked up the latest design concerns as chiefly a matter of individual taste.

"Personally, I don't see it," he said of the suggestion that the statue might make King look like a dictator.

But Johnson added that when it comes to painting or sculpture, "You get 10 people in a room and 10 people are going to see 10 different things."

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.