Pamela Rosenkranz Installs Old Tree as the Third High Line Plinth Commission in Spring 2023
New York, NY (December 2, 2022)—High Line Art announces the third High Line Plinth commission: Old Tree, a 25-foot-tall sculpture in vivid pink and red, by artist Pamela Rosenkranz. Located on the park at West 30th Street and 10th Avenue, the Plinth, as a landmark destination for major public art, features a rotating program of new monumental commissions. Rosenkranz’s artwork will be installed on the High Line in Spring 2023 and will be on view through September 2024.
For the third High Line Plinth commission, Rosenkranz presents Old Tree, a bright red-and-pink sculpture that animates myriad historical archetypes wherein the tree of life connects heaven and earth. The tree’s sanguine color resembles the branching systems of human organs, blood vessels, and tissue, inviting viewers to contemplate the indivisible connection between human and plant life. Old Tree evokes metaphors for the ancient wisdom of human evolution as well as a future in which the synthetic has become nature. On the High Line—a contemporary urban park built on a relic of industry—Old Tree raises questions about what is truly “artificial” or “natural” in our world. Made of man-made materials and standing at a height of 25 feet atop the Plinth, it provides a social space, creating shade while casting an ever-changing, luminous aura amid New York’s changing seasons.
Pamela Rosenkranz creates sculptures, paintings, videos, and installations that reflect on the human need to anthropomorphize our surroundings in order to understand them. In doing so, she investigates the codes through which people give meaning to the natural world. Her projects center synthetic materials created in the image of nature: a swimming pool filled with viscous fluid, collections of mineral water bottles filled with silicone, or a kitchen faucet streaming water colored with E131 “sky blue” synthetic dye. Color is paramount for Rosenkranz, who employs fabricated colors intended to reflect unblemished and idealized nature. She elaborates on the condition of the body as a malleable system. Questioning the worldview that centers human beings, Rosenkranz addresses our relentless attempts to domesticate and tame the other living beings around us, as well as our own bodies.
The exhibition of Old Tree on the High Line will be activated by public programming around themes of botany and anthropology, with more details to be announced.
Old Tree’s installation precedes the opening of the Moynihan – High Line Connector later in Spring 2023. The location of the Plinth on the High Line’s Spur is adjacent to the forthcoming pathway that will lead pedestrians over 30th Street and Dyer Avenue towards Moynihan Train Hall.
ABOUT THE HIGH LINE PLINTH
The High Line Plinth is the first space on the High Line—and one of the only sites in New York City—dedicated solely to new, monumental, contemporary art commissions. Artworks on the Plinth rotate every 18 months and are selected from proposals solicited from artists around the world. Rosenkranz’s work was selected from a shortlist of 12 artworks—narrowed down from 80 total submissions—proposed in 2020 for the third and fourth High Line Plinth commissions.