King Memorial

My first feeling on this article was that there was something inherently wrong with choosing a Chinese artist to create the MLK memorial, but it has taken me a while to formulate why. While I think that the sense of "world unity" is hopeful in this situation- it is also unrealistic. The sad fact of the matter is that minority artists are still greatly underrepresented in public art contracts. This is a widespread issue- last year alone MOMA's exhibitions were made up of 60% white males, 17.5% white females, 17.5% minority females and 5% minority males. If you only look at large solo shows the figures are worse- 80% WM, 13% WF, 7% MF and 0% MM! By not choosing an artist of African-American decent and hiding behind "reverse-discrimination" they are chipping away at the work that Martin Luther King strived to achieve. He wanted equality for everyone but lets be honest- that started with equal rights and equal access for African Americans. A memorial is more than just a statue or a piece of architecture. It is representative of that historical movement or person or place and I think that actual physical depiction is only half of what goes into a good piece- there has to be emotion there- emotion that one can only get from a shared history or experience.