The enormous face emerging on the Mall in Washington is laid out on six acres of open space next to the Reflecting Pool and just west of the National World War II Memorial. Although workers were still constructing the image last week, using dark potting soil on a background of lighter-colored sand, an eye and the nose and chin of a young man were already clearly visible from high in the Washington Monument.
From ground level, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada’s “Out of Many, One” looks like an eccentric landscaping project; but from the windows of the obelisk, more than 500 feet above the Mall, the work reveals an attractive young man in three-quarter profile, seeming to stare through a large gap formed by trees.
