A six-foot-tall wax replica of the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, has melted as the east coast of the US has been experiencing a punishing heat wave over the past week in cities like Washington, DC.
According to the Washington Post, Sandy Williams IV, an artist from Richmond, designed the statue, which was placed at Garrison Elementary School last February.
Williams IV claimed that the online discussion brought attention to a unique quality of public art that allows for interpretation, even when that interpretation is unexpected.
"When I show work in galleries, the population I'm interacting with is a more particular demographic," she added. "Whereas public art is just for everyone, especially once it then is on the internet and is becoming a meme."
The sculpture was not supposed to melt in the summer heat. The wax has wicks inserted, and spectators are encouraged to light one for a few minutes to collectively melt Lincoln over time.
Lincoln's head was removed and stored for security, with plans to reattach it on Tuesday.
Williams IV, an assistant professor of art at the University of Richmond, said that the paraffin wax they used was graded to resist temperatures as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Although they did not quite reach those levels, the region's temperatures set records.
The artist has been creating wax figures for so long that they often joke about how their art must shift to the environment instead of history.
"I didn't expect that point to be this past weekend," Williams said. "The sex jokes aren't definitely all I want people to take away from it," they said. "My hope is with this viral viewing of the work, any segment of the population seeing it will have a moment to spend more time with it and get to know these deeper histories the work is trying to engage."
