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MLK Jr. sculpture by Boardman native will highlight event
A CLEAR MESSAGE
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
A sculpture created by a Boardman native will be unveiled Saturday at an event to celebrate the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
The giant work of art — it’s 77 feet long and 37 feet high — by Michael Murphy will be set up on the National Mall near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
Murphy, 35, a Boardman High graduate who received a bachelor’s degree from Kent State in 2000 and a master’s from the Art Institute of Chicago, lives in Milledgeville, Ga., where he is an assistant professor at Georgia College and State University.
Murphy’s work of art, which will be on display for one day only, is corrugated on both sides, with MLK Jr.’s quotes on them.
There are four vantage points where the quotes become visible as the viewer walks around the sculpture.
The four quotations are “I have a dream”; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”; “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”; and “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“Viewers have a tendency to make order out of chaos,” Murphy said during a phone call from his Georgia home.
“There is enough information there so they will figure it out.”
The goal, he said, is to draw viewers together and bring them closer as King’s words are revealed.
The sculpture is mounted on a large steel truss, and can be easily dismantled and moved.
Murphy, who has a track record for making large-scale public artworks and social activism art, was approached by Celebrate the Dream, a grass-roots organization that is staging Saturday’s event — which he will attend.
Other examples of his public artwork can be seen in Cleveland, including a sculpture to honor Stephanie Tubbs Jones at a transit center named for the late Congresswoman.
The 5-foot-tall bust of Jones will be unveiled next month.