Medusa with the Head of Perseus

Medusa with the Head of Perseus is a sculpture.  Argentine artist Luciano Garbati made it in 2008.  It is famous because people in the Me Too movement talked about it.  The media called the statue an "icon of justice" for people who survived sexual assault. That happened several years after the statue was made.

Myth

Medusa is a Greek myth.  In the story, Perseus kills Medusa, not the other way around: Medusa is a monster with a face so terrible that anyone who sees her turns to stone.  Medusa lives on an island.  The hero Perseus comes to the island to kill Medusa.  He cuts off her head and puts it in a bag.  He later uses the head to turn his enemies to stone.  Perseus then gives Medusa's dead head to the gods.  Zeus puts Medusa's head on his shield so it will frighten his enemies.

At some point in history, no later than the Roman poet Ovid, another part was added to the myth: Medusa starts as a human priestess and not a monster.  She works for the goddess Athena in her temple.  She is raped by the god Poseidon in Athena's temple.  To the people telling the myth, Medusa, not Poseidon, was the one who had done something bad.  Athena punishes Medusa by turning her into an ugly monster: Her hair turns into snakes.  Her face becomes terrifying.  Only then does Medusa go to the island where Perseus will later kill her.

Making

In the 1500s, Benvenuto Cellini made a sculpture called Perseus with the Head of Medusa. In that sculpture, a nearly naked Perseus holds up Medusa's head.  Garbati wanted to make that statue in reverse.  Garbati did not think he was making feminist art.  He only want to "flip the script" of the story of Perseus and Medusa.  He only wanted to show the sculpture the opposite way.

Garbati started with clay.  He used the clay model to make another sculpture out of resin and fiberglass.  Then, he could use the resin sculpture to make copies out of bronze.  The sculpture is almost 7 feet tall (about 2 meters).  It shows a naked Medusa with a sword in her left hand.  She holds a man's head by the hair in her right hand.  She stares down and ahead.  She looks like a woman and not a monster.  Garbati used his own face for Perseus.

Garbati offered to sell the original resin sculpture for US$35,000 and bronze copies for US$60,000, depending on who made the bronze copy.

Garbati decided not to copy Cellini's statue exactly.  Cellini shows Perseus holding Medusa's head high and smiling.  He stands lightly on one foot.  Garbati shows Medusa holding Perseus' head low and staring straight ahead.  She stands heavily on both feet.  Garbati said this was because Perseus coming to attack Medusa meant different things to Perseus and Medusa:

"I was thinking of Perseus, this man with all his gadgets, going there and having this victory. This difference between a masculine victory and a feminine one, that was central to my work. The representations of Perseus, he's always showing the fact that he won, showing the head…if you look at my Medusas…she is determined, she had to do what she did because she was defending herself. It’s quite a tragic moment."

As survivor icon

During the #MeToo Movement, thousands of women wrote to Garbati saying what the statue meant to them.  They said Medusa was a woman who had been raped who fought back.

Criticism

Some people said that black women started the #MeToo Movement, so it was not good to have a statue made by a male artist as its symbol.  Garbati answered that he liked that people liked his statue.  He also said he'd learned more about patriarchy.  Other people asked Garbati why he made Medusa naked and beautiful when she is ugly in the myth.  He answered that artists have been showing Medusa as beautiful since the 400s b.c.e.  Other people asked why Medusa was holding the head of Perseus and not of the god who raped her, Poseidon.  This was because Garbati had not meant to make the statue about rape survivors.  He had only meant to do Cellini's statue backwards.

Location
For a long time, the statue stayed in Garbati's own art studio in Buenos Aires.

In 2020, the statue was shown in New York's Collect Pond Park near the court of criminal justice.  This was where Harvey Weinstein stood trial for his crimes.  Garbati and helpers started selling small copies of the statue.  They gave 10% of the money to the National Women's Law Center.

References

Other websites
Official website
Medusa with the Head Project

Art
Statues
Feminism