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Statue Of Medusa Now Glares At The Courthouse Where Harvey Weinstein Was Convicted
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 14, 2020
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Courtesy of MWTH Project
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 14, 2020
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On Tuesday, Luciano Garbati's 12-year-old statue of Medusa found a new home intended to lend the sculpture new meaning. Created in 2008, Garbati's piece depicts the Greek mythological character holding the decapitated head of Perseus. She now stands 7-feet-tall in Collect Pond Park, her gaze affixed on the New York County Criminal Courthouse, where Harvey Weinstein was convicted. The disgraced movie mogul is currently serving a 23-year-sentence for rape at the Wende Correctional Facility in Buffalo New York, and survived a bout of coronavirus in April.
In a press release, the statue is described as an "icon of justice... in a moment of somberly empowered self-defense." However, some critics on Twitter were quick to find fault with the piece — for being created by a man, for being too thin, for being rage-driven, and as the NY Times notes, "others wondered why, if the sculpture was intended to be about sexual violence, Medusa carried the head of Perseus and not Poseidon, her rapist."
Here are some Greek mythology Cliff's Notes courtesy of the press release:
In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Medusa was a maiden in the temple of Athena, who was stalked and raped by Poseidon. Athena, in a rage, banishes and curses Medusa with a monstrous head of snakes and a gaze which turns men to stone. Medusa is herself blamed and punished for the crime of which she was the victim; she is cast away as a monster and then with the cruel assistance of Athena and Poseidon, eventually is hunted-down and beheaded by the epic hero Perseus, who displays her head as a trophy on his shield.
Prior to its unveiling on Tuesday, the sculptor Garbati wrote that he hoped the statue would become "a symbol of justice for many women," and noted that its location "is not accidental, since there they judge cases for crimes related to violence against women." As for its appearance, he told the Times that critics should "consider the literature from a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that chronicles how artistic depictions of Medusa morphed from beastly to beautiful starting in the fifth century B.C."
My only criticism is that this statue is not tall enough — from now on each female statue should be as tall as the Statue of Liberty (a man), if not taller. Imagine looking up to see the stone-cold, bad-ass, 300-foot-tall depictions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shirley Chisholm, and all those other female historical statues coming to New York. Something to think about, sculptors!
Medusa With The Head of Perseus will be on view in the park through April 2021.
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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