Three years after ‘Forever Marilyn’ came to Museum Way, the giant statue will be moved to another location in Palm Springs, as Terry Castleman reports for the Los Angeles Times.
“The statue will be resettled in a ‘location to be determined in the Downtown Park,’ Palm Springs Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in a statement. ‘The City Council is very pleased to have found a satisfactory solution to this issue, which has divided so many within our community.’ The statue will not be moving far: the park spans only 1.5 acres, and the statue will be placed within its boundaries.
Trina Turk, a fashion designer, was among those who led the effort to get the statue relocated. The GoFundMe page administered by Turk, which raised more than $115,000 to lobby the city to move the statue, expressed cautious optimism about the decision in a recent post.
The statue left Palm Springs in 2014 before returning in 2021. ‘Good news because good riddance,’ Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote in 2014. In the debate over the statue’s placement in 2021, Palm Springs Art Museum director Louis Grachos told the council that museum visitors, particularly schoolchildren, would stare at Marilyn’s backside and underwear on their way to and from the museum.
The City Council ultimately approved the statue’s location for three years beginning in 2021, despite protests from those in the community and critics like Knight who said it was sexist. It took up residence in a busy section of downtown Palm Springs near the art museum.
The city’s decision to move the statue from its current location dissatisfied some in Palm Springs. On the city’s Facebook post announcing the move, the top comments were all from residents and visitors who disagreed with the plan. One wrote that tourists ‘love taking photos there.’ ‘It’s a shame you caved to the pressure to relocate her,’ another wrote.”
The Marilyn Report 