Poop Pick Up Sculpture Now On Display Near Forest Park's Dog Run

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Queens-based artist Yvonne Shortt has gone on many adventures at Forest Park's dog run with her Airedale terrier Peppermint, but the memory she's chosen to immortalize in a public art installation is the park's poop pick up predicament.

In a cheeky sculpture located adjacent to the dog run, Shortt crafted a dog, an owner, and a "poop patrol" worker kneeling down with a microscope, presumably trying to identify which owner failed to clean up after their four-legged friend.

Shortt's mixed-media installation is one of 40 new pieces of public art on display across the city's parks as part of the NYC Parks' Art in the Parks exhibits — a public arts initiative that's brought thousands of public arts displays to parks citywide since 1967.

Most of NYC Parks' artwork and monuments are permanent fixtures in the city's parks, but this summer's new installations are temporarily on view during the "summer of New York City," which is what the mayor has affectionately dubbed the city's reopening.

The installations range in scale from small sculptures to large monuments, crafted from textiles, plants, and acrylic alike, according to the City's Parks Department.

Shortt's piece, which she titled "Peppermint" in honor of her dog and made with Mayuko Fujino, Joel Esquite, Anna Sedova, and Elizabeth Barksdale, is a small, mixed-media work that will be on display in Forest Park through next June.

By contrast, another temporary piece of art in Queens is a large LED sculpture crafted by Shervone Neckles, an interdisciplinary artist from Queens Village.

Neckles' award-winning work, titled BEACON, honors Lewis Howard Latimer, a Black inventor and electrical pioneer, and is on display outside the Lewis Latimer House Museum in Flushing through August.

Here's a map of the city's public art installations — 114 of which are in Queens.