In Brief:
- A statue in Times Square has been derided online and by conservative commentators for celebrating a woman they see as less than inspiring.
- Others are delighted that an ordinary person is being depicted in such an important context.
- This debate reflects larger arguments about race and who is being celebrated or marginalized in this society.
Rhonda Porter comes into New York occasionally to catch up on the shows. She had tickets to see Denzel Washington portray Othello but made a point of stopping by Times Square first to get a look at a statue.
The 12-foot bronze figure depicting a Black woman has drawn controversy. Commentators online and on the news have complained that it’s “monstrous,” “disrespectful" and unattractive. An online petition calling for the statue to be taken down, contending it offered a “distorted image of Black women,” garnered 2,400 signatures. But the piece, known as Grounded in the Stars by London-based artist Thomas J. Price, was always meant to be a temporary installation and will be removed this Saturday.
Some have complained that the person depicted is anonymous and that a heroic figure would be more appropriate. “There isn’t anything wrong with a statue of a black woman but pick one to honor,” wrote one person on Facebook. “Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Shirley Chisholm. … Any of them would have been a great choice. Instead it’s a rando fat woman with Walmart clothes.”
Porter, who is Black, was having none of it. Looking at the statue and taking pictures, she questions why anyone would read anything negative into it. “Black women are not a monolith, right?” she says. “She represents one portion of Black women and she’s beautiful. She’s absolutely beautiful.”
Over the past decade, there have been frequent debates about who gets memorialized in public art and whether that should change. In the 2010s, numerous Southern states passed laws that blocked localities from removing Confederate monuments. Following the so-called racial reckoning that came after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, numerous statues depicting white supremacists or colonialists were removed or vandalized.
Price, the sculptor, says that showing an ordinary person is the whole point. “As well as celebrating historical figures, I would like future sculptures to look like people that I recognize,” he wrote in a 2020 essay, “helping to counter the endless stream of limiting tropes and identities for Black people.”
Not everyone agrees. “This is what they want us to aspire to be?” Fox News host Jesse Watters said about the Times Square piece. “If you work hard, you can be overweight and anonymous?”
Not Much Representation
Grounded in the Stars towers over two nearby statues, one depicting the song-and-dance man George M. Cohan and another showing Father Francis J. Duffy. Both of those statues have been in place for decades and will remain long after Saturday’s removal of the temporary installation.
White men, whether on horseback or standing stock still, make up the vast majority of public sculptures in the U.S. Nationwide, real women are depicted in only 6 percent of statues, according to Sierra Rooney, an art professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
To address this kind of imbalance, in recent years many museums and galleries have installed art by Black people, Latinos, women and other traditionally underrepresented groups to be “in conversation” with collections of art largely created by white men.
One of the most celebrated living artists is Kehinde Wiley, who generally depicts contemporary Black men and women in heroic poses that mirror portraiture from earlier ages. In 2019, Wiley showed a statue in Times Square called Rumors of War that portrayed an African American youth in streetwear, the work inspired by a 1907 sculpture of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart.
Now, not far from Times Square, the Whitney Museum is showing an exhibition of work by the painter Amy Sherald. Although best known for her portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama (Wiley painted Barack Obama’s official portrait), Sherald generally depicts everyday African Americans, casting their skin tones in grayscale and placing their eyes level with the viewer’s in an attempt to force people to see their humanity. “The Black body on canvas is instantly politicized,” Sherald once said.
“There’s nothing political about the statue,” said a Black man named Cedric who was visiting Times Square from Virginia. “That’s what some people may ascribe to it. It’s just a Black woman in Times Square, and there are lots of Black women in Times Square.”
Racial Divides
This is a moment when Black people, among others, are being erased from American institutions. The teaching of Black history has become controversial, with diversity, equity and inclusion programs being banned in many states and at the federal level. Some artifacts have been removed from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, after President Donald Trump issued an executive order demanding the museum take down exhibits that “divide Americans based on race.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered the Navy to rename a ship that was set to honor gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, with new names apparently being considered for ships named after civil rights figures including Harriet Tubman and Thurgood Marshall. On Tuesday, Trump announced that several bases originally named after Confederate figures would have those names restored. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts,” Trump said. “It's no time to change. And I'm superstitious. I like to keep it going.”
The statue in Times Square clearly speaks to this larger argument, about whose story gets told and which Americans are celebrated.
On Fox News, David Marcus complained that the Times Square piece took “wokeness” to new heights, asking why a statue of an “angry Black lady” was being displayed in a city where a monument of President Theodore Roosevelt flanked by African and Native American men had been taken down five years ago.
With a soft rain falling on Times Square, many tourists ignored the statue, off to see other attractions or get their pictures taken with people dressed as Minnie Mouse or a Transformer. But Becki, a white woman from Dallas visiting New York with her family, was delighted when she came across it, impressed as others were by the figure’s self-possession.
“It was unexpected and it’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s beautiful. It shows how powerful she is. She looks very determined.”
