The Rockefeller Center in New York installed a sculpture by German Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi on March 18th. Vertical Highways V03 (2025), situated at the Channel Gardens between Fifth Avenue and The Rink, will be on view through April 17th.
Vertical Highways V03 features a collection of bent and battered red guardrails. The mangled materials, which evoke a collision site or a scrap yard scene, tangle together and stand upright in the central pavilion. Pousttchi often uses industrial materials—such as crowd barriers or traffic bollards—to comment on city life and metropolitan spaces.
"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,” Pousttchi said in a statement.
This is the first time one of the Berlin-based artist’s “Vertical Highways” has been shown in the United States. Some smaller iterations were included in “Horizons,” her most recent solo show, mounted by Berlin’s Buchmann Galerie in September 2025. Previous sculptures in this series have been presented at the Jardin des Tuileries, outside Berlin Central Station, and at the Istanbul Modern, among other sites. Pousttchi’s work has been the subject of solo shows at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, and MoCA Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, among others.
“Bettina Pousttchi’s Vertical Highways V03 transforms the language of infrastructure into a striking visual experience,” EB Kelly, head of Rockefeller Center and senior managing director of Tishman Speyer, said in a statement. “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.”
