Connecting the Dots

If the public sculptures we visited were pins on a digital map, they can be connected by how the artist chose to position them. Henry Ward Beecher sculpture by John Quincy Adam’s, erected in 1891 and the Sherin Banfield, Sky’s the Limit in the County of Kings, A Tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. (2022) are both located in Columbus Park, facing each other. This can be viewed as the past looking into the future and seeing similarities within what each figures represent. While both can initially be perceived as representing two different messages, something they have in common that I understood is both were presented in a way for the figures to be admired and looked up to (almost literally in regards to Beecher’s sculpture). Together, they tell us that Brooklyn has continuously had leaders throughout history who supported freedom, whether it be politically or in the context of music. It also shows how diverse Brooklyn can be with two figures who are initially thought of in different circumstances being memorialized so close together which would be difficult to portray with the sculptures on their own.