OLD TREE urban art installation by Pamela Rosenkranz in New York City’s High Line – Courtesy of the High Line Art programme.

Art, Architecture – On the High Line Plinth, one of New York City’s few sites for artists to realise large-scale contemporary artworks, acclaimed Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz created a bright pink Old Tree that “comes alive amid the park’s foliage and the surrounding architecture,” explains Rosenkranz.

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The vibrant 25-foot-tall pink and red sculpture is made of artificial materials. Old Tree “mirrors the High Line’s complexities as both a natural landscape and a built structure,” said Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of the High Line Art programme. The High Line is a famed contemporary urban park built on a Manhattan industry relic.

With the Old Tree installation, Pamela Rosenkranz aims to raise questions about what is truly artificial or natural in our world. Standing in stark contrast to the buildings around it, the work provides social space, creating shade while casting an ever-changing, luminous aura amid New York’s changing seasons.

“Whether experienced up close or seen at a distance, Old Tree serves as a beacon of possibility and renewal,” adds Alan van Capelle, Executive Director of the High Line. Indeed, the installation animates myriad historical archetypes of the tree of life that connects heaven and earth. With its striking colours and form, the sculpture resembles the branching systems of organs, blood vessels, and tissue of the human body, inviting viewers to consider the indivisible connection between human and plant life.

Pamela Rosenkranz creates sculptures, paintings, videos, and installations that reflect the human need to anthropomorphise our surroundings to understand them. In doing so, she investigates the codes through which people give meaning to the natural world.

The installation was commissioned by the High Line Art project, which produces a wide array of artworks, including site-specific commissions, exhibitions, performances, video programs, and a series of billboard interventions. The exhibition of Old Tree will be activated by public programming around themes of botany and anthropology, with more details to be announced.

All images of the Old Tree installation by Pamela Rosenkranz in New York City’s High Line are courtesy of the High Line Art programme.