“I wax like Lincoln too. Meeeee too, remarked a social media user.
There isn’t even an Abraham Lincoln wax figure that is safe from the intense summer heat.
According to USA Today, the BBC, and Newsweek, the 3,000-pound monument outside Garrison Elementary in Washington, D.C. started to melt over the weekend in temperatures that were close to triple digits.
According to the BBC, Lincoln’s head started to go first, followed by a leg and a foot. The head of the statue was eventually “purposely removed” by the workers of CulturalDC, the nonprofit that had commissioned the work, in order to “prevent it from falling and breaking.”
The group claimed in a statement on their website that while the statue, technically known as “40 Acres: Camp Barker,” was always intended to “be burnt like a candle and to change over time,” the extreme heat certainly took a toll on it.
The organization posted, “Lincoln has slumped into his chair more than ever anticipated with this record-level heat!” “With 2024 approaching and our planet warming further, all that wax is leaning back.”
Regarding the future, the group questioned, “But who really will be?” after stating that they couldn’t “guarantee he’ll be sitting up straight for the months ahead.”
The melted figure has mercilessly been the target of many internet jokes.
“I wax like Lincoln too. meeeee too,” one person said on X, formerly known as Twitter, while another added, “How your email reaches me,” as the caption for a picture of the melting sculpture.
Although Sandy Williams IV, the artist, told Newsweek that they weren’t “expecting this version of the artwork to melt in this way,” they did anticipate that the sculpture would eventually melt.
“I used to joke that this work would turn into environmental art when the climate deteriorated and we experienced temperatures high enough to melt these sculptures. The artist said, “I did not anticipate that day to come this past weekend.
Though it will be taken down before classes resume in August, curator and Executive Director of CulturalDC Kristi Maiselman told USA Today that there are no plans to “repair the installation.”
Although galleries and individual collectors have expressed interest in buying the statue, Maiselman revealed that there hasn’t been “a concrete decision on where the piece will go next.”
