2017.07.01 Lincoln and the Common Man Statues

This art installation in Chicago’s Pioneer Square is titled “Return Visit” and is intended to portray Lincoln explaining his Gettysburg Address to an average modern man. Created by Seward Johnson in 2014, the have gradually made their way westward, from New Jersey to Ohio to Indiana. Controversy and speculation surround the identity of the modern man. Some believe that the average modern man is Perry Como, some believe that he is Donald Trump since Lincoln seems to be gesturing up towards Trump tower with his tophat, some object to his clothing is not modern enough, and some object to his ethnicity. When I was shooting this panorama, many asked me who that was, and I told them it was Carl Sandburg, famous Chicago-based author and poet (1878-1967) who received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.