The first thing you notice about the Socrates Sculpture Park are the promising sculptures seen from a distance at the very front entrance. Following along is the open greenery, the cool breezes and early afternoon sun, even the colorful greeting billboard; all the settings are quality aspects of what the park has in store. Beginning as an abandoned landfill, later founded in 1986, the Socrates Sculpture Park has been a home for ongoing artists to present pieces of ambiguity and directives, strangeness and charm. Among those artists are Žilvinas Kempinas: an artist currently living in New York City.

The Socrates Sculpture Park held a Kempinas pieced titled Scarecrow, a curved entryway made up of slender pillars, all interconnected by thin, metallic tapes, spreading across a wide green field. The name alone is a soft hint at attempting alternative messages in inanimate objects; a way to break away from processed thinking. When thinking of a scarecrow, you might think of a heavy doll, which would remain effectively still but with the slightly moving interior; this case being the hay. Kempinas cleverly mimics that kind of structure in his Scarecrow piece. He aligns his pillars with fast-moving strips of paper, each attached from one pillar and ending at the other. The poles are still while the strips rapidly move in the wind. So what exactly is the piece hinting? A offering of rethinking, especially in best, creative ways: through art itself.

Kempinas wasn’t alone among the stretch of sculptures that day. The Socrates Sculpture Park hosted a piece by Paweł Althamer, a Polish sculptor and artist. Althamer’s sculpture, Queen Mother of Reality, is a dedication to Ambassador Doctor Delois Blakely: Community Mayor of Harlem. This is an exhibit with so much eye-popping, detailed interior that you cannot look away from. Althamer creates a sculpture of a woman, layered in different materials – as are the many different citizens of New York City – and the inside is not any different. Yes, the inside of the walk-in sculpture is not any different. Inside, the walls are made of quilts and boarded wood, photos of inspiring women hang from the ceilings – which is the greatest addition. This exhibit is granted with the many details of feminism as a whole, the details of New York citizens, and the citizens who have fallen through the difficult cracks of American culture. All of this crafted together – every photo, fabric, and person.

Socrates Sculpture Park is terribly underrated for the kind of purpose it serves. Sculptures aside, it’s a park for creative inspiration, passion, equity, and, if you needed anymore reason to visit: free movie nights.