Open Space: Jean Shin

Socrates Sculpture Park is pleased to announce a special project entitled Penumbra by Jean Shin. For this site-specific installation, the artist has collected hundreds of broken black umbrellas that were abandoned on the streets of New York City. The fabric umbrella “skins” have been removed from their structures and sewn together to form an enormous shroud-like cloth. Suspended overhead from the trunks of three large trees, the canopy becomes a sculpture that shifts and undulates in response to the wind and the movement of the trees while shielding and protecting the ground below.

Jean Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Shin has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and abroad. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and a NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture.

This project is made possible by the dedication and support of our volunteers, patrons and friends and by the generosity of: Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Cowles Charitable Trust, The Fifth Floor Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, JPMogan Chase, Naitonal Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This Program is supported, in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks to the City of New York, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, City Councilmember Eric Gioia, and the Department of Parks & Recreation, Commissioner Adrian Benepe.