The Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 will be remembered during a memorial gathering in Liberty Sculpture Park at Yermo, California on June 4 at 4:00 p.m. A new sculpture by the park's creator Chen Weiming will be unveiled.
The park, located in the Mojave Desert at 37570 Yermo Road, is maintained by the Liberty Sculpture Park Foundation, founded in 2018. Chen's first sculpture there was of Crazy Horse, but most of the works are related to China. "Tiananmen Massacre Relief," "Tank Man" and "64 Monument" are among the works recalling the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Most of the park's posts on social media are in Chinese, but its website has pages in English.
The numerals 6 and 4 in the "64 Monument" refer to the Tiananmen Massacre which occurred in the sixth month of the year (June) on the fourth day.
The park is off Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Some reviewers on Tripadvisor said that sculptures in the park could be seen from cars passing on the highway. One reviewer said, "Each sculpture is massive and interesting" but added that there were "no placards to describe anything about these sculptures."
Reviewers complained that the entrance to the park was not easy to find. "Entrance is on Yermo Road via a dirt road," one reviewer advised. Another reviewer said, "I own the property next to the sculpture park and ever since they started putting up statues it has made my life a living hell." The reviewer said visitors to the park drove across "my property, some getting stuck in the sand and turning my 10 acres into a wasted place."
Chinese-born Canadian writer Anna Wang visited the park in January. In a tweet, she said, "The 'CCP Virus II' impressed me with the artist’s courage and acuity." That sculpture is a replacement for one destroyed by arson in July 2021, one month after being unveiled. Like the original, the new sculpture blames the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the COVID-19 virus.
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn of The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for their reporting of the Tiananmen Square massacre. "Many of those killed were throwing bricks at the soldiers, but others were simply watching passively or standing at barricades when soldiers fired directly at them," reported Kristof, on the day of the massacre.
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