Dimensions 7.9 m (26 ft) Created 2011 Year 2011 | Artist John Seward Johnson II Phone +1 609-586-0616 | |
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Type Painted steel and aluminum Location Chicago, Illinois (2011–2012)
Palm Springs, California (2012–2014)
Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey (2014–2015)
Bendigo, Australia (2016) Owner The Sculpture Foundation Address 80 Sculptors Way, Hamilton Township, NJ 08619, USA Similar John Seward Johnson II artwork, Other artwork | ||
forever marilyn unveiled on the magnificent mile
Forever Marilyn is a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe designed by Seward Johnson. The statue is a representation of one of the most famous images of Monroe, taken from the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch. Created in July 2011, the statue has been displayed in a variety of locations in the United States as well as in Australia.
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Design and locations
The 26-foot-tall (7.9 m) 34,000-pound (15,000 kg) sculpture, manufactured of painted stainless steel and aluminium, is a super-sized tribute to Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene from Billy Wilder's 1955 infidelity comedy, The Seven-Year Itch, with the figure capturing the instant a blast of air from a NYC subway grate raises her white dress.
The statue was displayed at Pioneer Court part of the Magnificent Mile section of Chicago, Illinois, before it was moved to the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs, California, in 2012.
It was given a farewell sendoff during the Palm Springs Village Fest on March 27, 2014, and was then relocated to the 42-acre Grounds for Sculpture (GFS) in Hamilton, New Jersey as part of a 2014 retrospective honoring Seward Johnson. Due to its popularity, the statue remained on display at the GFS until September 2015, after the official end of the retrospective.
The statue was next displayed in 2016 in Rosalind Park in the Australian city of Bendigo in connection with the Bendigo Art Gallery's Marilyn Monroe exhibition.
Reception
In August and September 2011 the statue was vandalized three times, most recently being splashed with red paint. In the unsubstantiated opinion of the executive director of the Chicago Public Arts Group, this was because the statue is "laden with political meaning, and provocative meaning and sexual meaning".
The public, however, was often enthusiastic to view the statue: "Forever Marilyn journeyed back to Hamilton in April 2014, arriving at the Grounds for Sculpture on a truck as two dozen people cheered and took pictures. During the cross-country journey, people snapped photos of the sculpture in parking lots and along highways and posted them on social media."
At least one full size counterfeit is known to have been created and displayed, as a discarded sculpture was photographed in a dump after being displayed outside a business center in Guigang, China.