Forever Marilyn Detail

Title

Forever Marilyn Detail

Artist

Barbara Snyder

Medium

Digital Art - Digital Reproduction

Description

I have a total of 7 different images in this study of the Seward Johnson designed statue, Forever Marilyn.

The statue is currently standing in Palm Springs, California where these photographs were taken. It was originally built in New Jersey and then transported to Pioneer Court, part of the Magnificent Mile section of Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

The painted bronze stature stands 26 feet tall, 17 feet wide and 18 ft deep. It is made up of 4 different sections with a combined weight of 34,300 pounds.
This bigger than life stature of the famed Hollywood sex symbol was built in 2011 and has caused a certain amount of controversy, as you can imagine. It has been the called the ￿ultimate up-skirt photographers dream￿, which I guess if you are 13 or 14 years old that may be the case.

Forever Marilyn has been vandalizes on more than one occasion. The statue, according to the executive director of the Chicago Public Arts Group, is "laden with political meaning, and provocative meaning and sexual meaning".
Art critic Richard Roeper writing in the Chicago Sun Times said, ￿Even worse than the sculpture itself is the photo-op behavior it￿s inspiring. Men (and women) licking Marilyn￿s leg, gawking up her skirt, pointing at here giant panties as they leer and laugh. It￿s not that the sculpture is shocking or sexist or obscene ￿ but it￿s definitely bringing out the juvenile goofball in many of us.￿

You cannot avoid the sculpture if you visit downtown Palm Springs. It stands on the corner of Palm Canyon and Tahquitz Canyon Way in the heart of the downtown. All the hoopla about it sexuality, public nudity and even claims of it being vulgar are just nonsense. When you walk down the streets of Palm Springs on any given day, nearly half the women you see are not wearing anywhere near as much clothing at Marilyn is in the statue.
I think the sculpture is done with as much good taste as can possibly be done considering the scene it is trying to depict. And given the nature of Marilyn￿s career and real life story, it is the right scene for her to be memorialized in. Marilyn in real life was the subject of much controversy through her big screen exposure, off screen exposure and constant media exposure. It is only befitting that she continues getting the same sort of exposure.

Uploaded

July 9th, 2013

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