A 12-foot bronze statue of a Black woman with braids, wearing casual everyday wear in Times Square has people talking. While a new installation, or anything, really in New York City’s most famous tourist stop doesn’t usually stop the throngs of people moving through, the installation, titled “Grounded in the Stars” has started conversations, both good and bad online and in the streets of “The Big Apple.”
The Black woman is standing tall, unbothered…basically, chillin’, hands on her hips, all day, everyday. Unbothered is a popular word nowadays. She is every woman, and every woman is she. The statue was allegedly inspired by Michaelangelo’s “David.”
Installed by British artist, Thomas J. Price, the statue is one of two installations intended to challenge people’s assumptions about identity and representation.
The description of the installation reads, “Through scale, materiality, and posture, ‘Grounded in the Stars’ disrupts traditional ideas around what defines a triumphant figure and challenges who should be rendered immortal through monumentalization.” Located at Broadway and 46th Street, the installation will be up until June 17.
Price, in a statement on Times Square’s website said, “The intention of my public works is to become part of the place they inhabit and its physical, material history, as well as the visitors that pass through and around the location, no matter how fleeting.”
His other installation, titled “Man Series” is a 95 screen installation of stop-motion animation of the heads of “sculpted male figures” that pop up from 11:57pm until midnight every night in May.
Needless to say, Price’s installations have people talking. And not exactly in a positive fashion.
“You know what’s cooler than this? Policy change,” said one user on Instagram. Another said, “Ehhh this is pandering. And why not an in-shape woman? Why not a woman with great achievements? Cmon now. Whose idea was this?”
One user asked, essentially, who exactly this was supposed to represent? “So they think we are overweight and don’t know how to dress?”
One user questioning why Black people were sharing any negativity asked, “Why yall hate yall self so much? 90% of yall mothers look exactly like this.”
“I love it – because why did she need to look like and African godess [sic]. This looks like the black women I ride next too in the train and they need to be celebrated too. This is aunty , cousin , sister vibes,” said another, who probably got closest to the sentiment of the the artist who created the statue.
No matter what side you land on, the statue has people talking and ultimately, that’s the goal of any solid art installation. If you were to ask the statue how she feels about it all? With hands on hips, she’d probably say, “I am unbothered.”
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