The new 25 foot-tall bronze statue unveiled in New York City’s Rockefeller Center to honor “African culture” has sparked outrage on the social media.
The monumental bronze sculpture that is standing 25 feet tall and weighing in at over 15,000 pounds was designed by a Harlem-based artist, Sanford Biggers.
The statue named ‘Oracle’ is the latest in the Biggers’s “Chimera” sculpture series, which merges African masks and European figures.
The seated body is inspired by the ancient Temple of Zeus, while the head is based on masks and other sculptures from various African cultures, including Luba art and the Maasai religion.
On the Oracle throne, there is the image of a lotus blossom, a recurring motif in the artist’s work where each of the petals is actually the cross-section of a slave ship.
The lotus also appears in photographic works Biggers has throughout the complex, which feature details from works in his “Codex” series, paintings and sculptures made from antique African American quilts featured in his recent exhibition at the Bronx Museum.
Artnet News reports that in the coming weeks, Oracle will also begin to live up to its name with the launch of an interactive component allowing viewers to consult the sculpture about their future after activating a QR code.
Through June 29, the sculpture will be voiced by “various celebrities,” according to Biggers, although he declined to name names.
Visitors will be able to ask the oracle anything they want, and if the oracle is “in,” they’ll get a live response from the day’s celebrity.
“They’ll respond as an oracle would,” Biggers said, “in mysterious, poetic vagaries which will hopefully be, if not helpful, at least mystifying.”
The 25-foot-tall bronze sculpture which was unveiled on Wednesday to honor African culture has sparked outrage among social media users.
See some reactions on Twitter below:
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