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Bettina Pousttchi: Vertical Highways
19th March, 2026 – 17th April, 2026
Rockefeller Center
Channel Gardens
Rockefeller Center will present Vertical Highways V03 (2025), a major new sculpture by Bettina Pousttchi, in the Channel Gardens from 19 March to 17 April 2026. Installed at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the historic promenade leading to The Rink, the work brings one of Europe’s most distinctive sculptural voices into the heart of Midtown Manhattan.
This marks the first public presentation in the United States of a sculpture from Pousttchi’s Vertical Highways series. Previous iterations have appeared at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, as a permanent installation outside Berlin Central Station, and in front of Istanbul Modern. At Rockefeller Center, the work enters a setting shaped as much by architecture and movement as by spectacle, offering visitors the chance to encounter one of the artist’s largest sculptures in one of New York’s most recognisable public spaces.
Constructed from guardrails, Vertical Highways V03 turns the language of control into something more unstable and open. For several years, Pousttchi has worked with objects that organise the experience of city space, including crowd barriers, street bollards and guardrails. Through bending, pressing and shifts in colour, she strips these materials of their usual function and loosens them from the systems of order they once served. What remains is a sculpture alive to motion, transformation and the softening of borders.
Bettina Pousttchi Vertical Highways V03 The serial logic of the work draws on both Minimal Art and Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, yet Pousttchi’s approach is not simply referential. Her sculpture repositions the materials of infrastructure as forms of visual thought, asking how cities shape bodies, behaviour and public life.
Born in Mainz in 1971 and now based in Berlin, Bettina Pousttchi has spent more than 15 years producing large-scale public sculptures and monumental site-specific installations for building façades. Her work is attentive to the architectural, social and cultural conditions of each site, making Rockefeller Center a fitting stage for a practice so deeply invested in the meanings embedded in urban form.
“By installing my sculpture “Vertical Highways V03” in front of Rockefeller Center, I want to initiate a dialogue of art and architecture that resonates with the urban history of New York City.” – Bettina Pousttchi, Artist
“Bettina Pousttchi’s “Vertical Highways V03” transforms the language of infrastructure into a striking visual experience. Public art has long been central to Rockefeller Center’s identity, and this installation continues that tradition in a way that feels both contemporary and deeply connected to our architectural heritage. We’re proud to share this work with everyone who visits Rockefeller Center.” – EB Kelly, Head of Rockefeller Center and Senior Managing Director, Tishman Speyer
Bettina Pousttchi, Vertical Highways V03, Rockefeller Center, New York. Public art has been integral to Rockefeller Center for nearly a century. Established by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abigail Rockefeller, the programme has grown into a year-round platform for free art across the campus, indoors and out. Today, more than 100 historic works remain on permanent display, alongside a changing programme of exhibitions that foreground emerging and established artists, many of them commissioned to create original site-specific works for the Centre.
Pousttchi’s international profile reflects the breadth of that ambition. Her solo exhibitions have been staged at institutions including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the Arts Club of Chicago, the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai and the Aurora Museum Shanghai. In Europe, recent solo presentations have included the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, the Berlinische Galerie – Museum for Modern Art Berlin, and Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich.
With Vertical Highways V03, Rockefeller Center extends its long conversation between art, architecture and public life. The result is a sculpture that feels equal to New York: muscular, alert and full of movement, yet open to reflection amid the churn of the city.
©2026 Bettina Pousttchi, Guillaume Ziccarelli
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