"The Awakening"

If you have ever taken a boat trip on the Potomac river around Washington DC, you can't help but notice the giant arms and legs sticking out of the ground right at the tip of the East Potomac Park, well thats a cast iron sculpture by J. Seward Johnson Jr. it was put there in 1980 as part of a Sculpture Exhibition, though the theme of the sculpture (awakening giant) is quite different from that of the other monuments, memorials and sculptures found in DC, but it does stay true to the newer era of memorials that are designed not just to aggrandize a person or an event but to make it easy for on lookers to interact, examples being the FDR memorial, Vietnam memorial and more recently World War 2 memorial.

I wonder what is Mr. Seward Johnson's thought process, a mythical giant from someone who sculpts in realism. I for one see something full of nuance, so many things are being said in so many ways.

Here is an interesting (but extremely rushed) take on Washington DC tourism 36 Hours in Washington, D.C.