try building the mesh - I oftentimes find that most of the "sky noise" is filtered out when building the mesh. Of course, if you don't have any photos of the top of the statue, looking down, I think you're stuck with some white blobs all along the top of his shoulders and head. Edit it out in a 3D modeling program.
These photo-modeling softwares are still pretty "young", and I simply take it for granted that except for under the most ideal photographing circumstances and conditions, there will be a significant amount of editing by hand needed afterwards.