Our visit to the Jewish Museum last Tuesday was both fascinating and exciting. I had visited this museum years ago as a young child, but it was a totally different experience this time around, since I was a lot older and had a much better understanding of politics and culture. 

The piece that stood out most to me was Deborah Kass’ OY/YO bright yellow sculpture on the third floor, the same one we saw at the entrance to the Brooklyn Museum. Deborah Kass is a famous Jewish lesbian artist who is known for her fight for equality and feminism through her art. According to AM New York, Kass notably said, “When I created OY/YO, the American promise of equality and fairness was writ in the most diverse administration ever, working to make the country a better place for all.” The first thing I noticed about this sculpture is that there is a dual meaning to it: it reads “oy” on one side and “yo” on the other. This is interesting, because “oy” is a Yiddish word that is “used especially to express exasperation or dismay,” according to Merriam-Webster. Having heard my grandparents speak Yiddish occasionally instead of Russian, the only word that I understood was “oy”. It’s such an easy word to remember, yet it means so much. If someone says “oy”, you know something unpleasant either happened or is currently happening. It seems that over time, people of so many other cultures have begun using the word “oy”, to the point that it has become a nearly universal expression of shock or unhappiness. Meanwhile, the word “yo” is a term popular among youth in urban areas around our nation. “Yo” is used as an informal greeting and is especially popular within the African-American and Latin-American communities. In fact, “yo” even means “I” in Spanish, a widely-spoken language within New York City and the entire nation. 

The OY/YO sculpture constitutes conceptual art because it expresses the two words “oy” and “yo” from just one sculpture. In my opinion, there is no significance between the color or material of the sculpture and the concept it is meant to portray. It is an abstract work of art and is not a mimesis of anything in particular. One essential characteristic of the sculpture is that it resembles the famous LOVE sculpture, which is an iconic symbol of New York, among other U.S. cities. Nevertheless, the sculpture has a special significance in the Jewish Museum, since “oy” is a popular Yiddish phrase. Moreover, it makes sense that the OY/YO sculpture is in New York City, since Deborah Kass is a native New Yorker and this concept is especially relevant in our city. 

Kass tries to show that despite being a divided group of people, we are more similar than we realize and we are all people. She derives two very different cultural words from the same two letters that can be read in either direction. Her work is certainly political and it was made at a time when America was changing for the better. President Obama showed our nation that diversity is possible, great, and essential, and we must all value each other. People have a tendency to judge one another based on race and ethnicity, but this should not be the case. Just because someone has a different color of skin or speaks another language than you, it doesn’t mean that this person is any different than you. We are all guilty of cultural misunderstanding, so Kass tries to change that and remind us of that. She has an important call to action to embrace one another’s differences and learn about each other’s cultures. This is essential at a time when racism is still very prevalent and must not be allowed. In fact, New York City is the perfect place for this work of art, because we are a melting pot of so many different cultures and types of people. Furthermore, if we choose to focus our attention particularly on the African-American and Jewish communities in our city, we can see that although the two groups are very different and have had racial tensions in the past, they are more similar than they may realize and should do everything in their power to understand and respect each other.