By Billy Adesola
In life, as great men come and go, sometimes we take it upon ourselves to erect monuments in their honour so we never forget them. While some people like Abraham Lincoln get something simple—a man sitting on a chair, some people are not as fortunate. Here are some of the creepiest monuments erected to honour great men.
- Martin Luther King Jr. (In Toledo, Ohio)
The great Martin Luther King Jr. has been idolized in numerous places over the years but this particular monument in Toledo, Ohio has its rightful place on this list. The monument looks like four dismembered Martin Luther King Jr. heads glued around a globe with blank stares and deadpan facial expressions.
- James Dean (Los Angeles)
The strangest thing about this monument is that James Dean himself commissioned it. The monument– which now stands at a site in Los Angeles where several scenes of his blockbuster Rebel Without A Cause was filmed—portrays a James Dean head looking really depressed. This is probably because the artist Kenneth Kendall started working on the sculpture on the night of the actor’s death. The sculpture was donated to the to the Griffith Observatory in 1988—33 years after the death of James Dean—who was responsible for erecting it at the movie site.
- Michael Jackson (London)
This statue’s place on this list is a mystery because it looks very colourful and happy. Sadly not a lot of people shared this opinion as it stirred a lot of controversy for being ‘really creepy’. The statue, which stood outside the Fulham Football Team’s Craven Cottage stadium, was so creepy that it was taken down in 2013 by American businessman Shahid Khan and returned to the previous owner.
- Oscar Wilde (London)
In memory of the amazing playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde, Maggie Hambling—a sculptor—created a masterpiece called A Conversation With Oscar Wilde. The unique about this piece is that it looks like a dismembered head with mangled features sticking out of a badly made coffin.
- Kurt Cobain (Aberdeen, Washington)
In his hometown, Aberdeen, Washington, February 20th is tagged ‘Kurt Cobain’ day to celebrate what would have been the late rock singer’s birthday. In 2014, a statue was unveiled on Kurt Cobain say by artist Randi Hubbard who began work on the statue in 1994 shortly after the singer’s death. The statue shows Cobain sitting and looking sober as a single tear drops from one eye.
