Why Go Soon?

Ten sculpted sheep by Brooklyn-based artist Kyu Seok Oh give us ten new reasons to look up from a park path on the Greenway. Since the second week in June, the hand-made paper sheep have stood on red metal perches just beyond reach in Chinatown Park, at the end along Essex Street, two blocks southwest of South Station. In May the major reason for a skyward view was Janet Echelman’s aerial art over the Greenway’s Fort Point Channel Parks, just a few blocks north of there. Oh’s installation extends the range.

Though the two installations are different in scale, scope, scintillation, and spectacle, both are temporary. They’re scheduled to be up for just a few months. If you put off going to see them until the fall, they may be gone before you get there. As with my post for the aerial sculpture, I want to spread the word as soon as possible so people can prioritize the Greenway in their plans this summer. Both installations signal a long-range plan to increase turnover, impact, and variety of public art along the Greenway.

Why Sheep?

Readers may wonder why “Wandering Sheep” have gathered above them in Chinatown Park. According to the Chinese Zodiac, this is the year of the sheep (ram, or goat by some Asian calendars). The new installation is the beginning of a proposed series of annual public art installations that will match the animals for each of the twelve signs in the zodiac and reflect the Asian cultures of the neighborhood. The year of the monkey comes next.

Oh’s successful impressive “Flock of Sheep” installation in New York’s Times Square from 2011 contains greater numbers but similar forms and constructions of individual abstracted sheep.

Times Square, March 2011

Times Square, March 2011

Times Square, NYC, March 2011

Why Comment on this Post?

The opening ceremony for the sheep in Chinatown Park is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16 at 5 p.m. I hope to go and learn more than I did from my one visit to the park, on June 11. The photos posted here come from my short time spent that day, plus a few links to other works by Kyu Seok Oh.

Very soon I should update this post with fascinating and factual content, especially if you respond here in Comments with your questions, corrections, connections, and perspective related to “Wandering Sheep.”

Update with photos from late July and quotes from the artist excerpted from an article July 30 in the Boston Globe by Eryn Carlson: “Behind the Scene: Wandering Sheep on the Greenway.”

“The sheep represent gentleness, and they celebrate the Chinese zodiac.”

“The sheep are like my family when we moved to Japan from a small town in Korea as illegal immigrants,” said Oh. “My artwork connects to the way I grew up as a minority.”

“This is a place that is busy and artificial, so I wanted to bring out the simple and quiet, the fragile and the natural ”

“Chinatown is growing and transitioning [from] the old generation to the new generation,” said Oh.

“Traditions and new developments are right in the same place.”