Art News

Martin Luther King Memorial by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin unveiled on National Mall

WASHINGTON, D.C. (REUTERS).- Martin Luther King Jr stood 30 feet tall on the National Mall as a memorial to him was unveiled on Monday morning — the first memorial on the Mall not dedicated to a war, president or white man. Fifteen years after a Congressional Joint Resolution in 1996 to establish a memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor King, the four-acre site on the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials opened to the public for the first time. “From a geometrical standpoint it’s on a direct line between the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial,” said Bill Line, spokesman for the National Park Service. “The brains and essence of our country (Thomas Jefferson), and Abe Lincoln, the greater uniter.” Visitors will walk through two massive white granite halves of the “Mountain of Despair” to reach the “Stone of Hope,” from which the sculpture of King emerges.The winning design from an inte