Honored to be invited to document the installation of a new Philly landmark this weekend! For roughly five hours this past Sunday afternoon, artist Deborah Kass’ OY/YO sculpture was installed at The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History (5th and Market Streets).

The artwork will officially be on view for the next year, from this May to next. But the sense I got was that most folks involved are hoping to make this a more permanent part of Philly’s public art landscape. I certainly hope they can find a way for it to stay!

“It’s about how two letters can mean so many different things to so many different communities,” artist Deborah Kass said to me as we watched the “Y” get locked into place.

“Deborah Kass’ OY/YO sculpture is a beautiful representation of both the stories we tell inside our museum and the larger story of our nation across the street on Independence Mall,” noted Weitzman curator, Josh Perelman. “It speaks in many languages. It is ‘oy,’ it is ‘yo.’ You can use whatever tonality you want and a new meaning comes.”

“It’s also a love letter to the city,” Perelman added. “It connects this corner, 5th and Market Streets, to the LOVE sculpture, to the Rocky sculpture. And, by the way, ‘yo’ is pretty Philly in and of itself.”

It took Philadelphians no time at all to start photographing the artwork and taking selfies with it. I suspect you’ll see this yellow beacon in your social media feeds a lot over the next year–or possibly longer!