What's the big deal about this small statue?

The Second Floor Art & Entertainment gallery, due to open this spring at 42 E. Washington St., has already drawn a backlash from Hoosiers. The reason? The owners' plan to make a statue of Michael Jordan a permanent feature of the exhibition space.

Comments on the original announcement, posted by the Indianapolis Business Journal in December, range from "My first feeling upon reading about the Jordan statue was embarrassment and feeling insulted," to "As a local Indy native, there is zero chance I will ever patronize a gallery who prominently and permanently displays a Michael Jordan statue as its signature display."

"We can appreciate people having that opinion and feeling like that, but the gallery that we're going to be opening isn't necessarily supposed to be dedicated to sports figures from the city of Indianapolis," said Curt Hunter, Second Floor co-founder who owns the gallery with his brother, Nick.

The idea, said Hunter, is to capture everything that Jordan embodied as a professional athlete and have that be a testament to our love of sports, entertainment and fine arts. The brothers' love of fine arts came from their parents, James and Linda Hunter, who own and are rehabbing the property. Nick and Curt previously held positions at their father's cataract treatment center before deciding to pursue the gallery project.

David Hoppe, culture and political columnist for Nuvo, penned a piece arguing that, "Indianapolis is its own city, with its own history and heroes." Hoppe says that Indy often receives other cities' legends and adopts them as their own.

"It's more a question of marketing and public relations," said Hoppe, who believes his column was a friendly way of saying that Second Floor was missing an opportunity to celebrate athletes like Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird and Indiana Pacer great Reggie Miller.

Chicago-based artist Boban Ilic has been commissioned to re-create the iconic "Jumpman" statue that stands in front of United Center arena in Chicago. The statue will be 57 inches tall and made from melted silverware, which is Ilic's favored medium. Hunter says the statue will only be recognizable by its shape.

"There's no face, there's no number 23," said Hunter. "We view Michael Jordan as a global icon of sport. It's not just Michael Jordan of the Bulls who played against the Pacers in the 1998 NBA Playoffs. He's bigger than that."

Hunter says Gallery Forty-Two and its second level art and entertainment gallery will be a place where sports fans and fine art aficionados can mingle. Eventually, the brothers — who hail from Franklin, Ind. — would like to host meet and greet events with Colts and Pacers players. As they continue to work on their business, they welcome feedback from the community and are eager to strike up a personal dialogue with those who are unhappy with what they're doing.

"(The statue) represents, not only basketball, but it represents greatness," said Hunter. "It represents success. There's only one athlete that we feel has become that — that can be recognizable just by shape — and that's what we were going for."

Call Michael Anthony Adams at (317) 444-6123. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelAdams317.