Groupe de quatre arbres

Groupe de quatre arbres est une sculpture monumentale de Jean Dubuffet, érigée à New York, aux États-Unis.

1. Description

Groupe de quatre arbres est située sur la Chase Manhattan Plaza, dans le Financial District de Manhattan, au croisement de William Street et de Pine Street. L'œuvre occupe un emplacement dans l'est de la place, elle-même légèrement surélevée par rapport à la rue, au pied du One Chase Manhattan Plaza. L'œuvre est une sculpture monumentale de 14 m de hauteur, constituée de résine d'époxy reposant sur une structure en aluminium, recouvrant elle-même une armature en acier ; l'ensemble est peint au polyuréthane. D'une forme plutôt abstraite, les troncs d'arbres sont suggérés par quatre structures verticales, reposant sur le sol ; le feuillage est quant à lui constitué de plans plus ou moins horizontaux, situés à des niveaux divers, connectant l'ensemble de la structure. Appartenant au cycle de L'Hourloupe, la sculpture est peinte d'un fond blanc, les arêtes marquées d'un trait noir.

1. Historique

La sculpture est une commande de l'homme d'affaires David Rockefeller, en 1969, pour le siège new-yorkais de la Chase Manhattan Bank, récemment créé ; pour Jean Dubuffet, il s'agit de la première commande d'une sculpture monumentale. L'artiste réalise plusieurs maquettes en 1970 ; il conçoit la sculpture retenue dans ses nouveaux ateliers de Périgny, en France. L'œuvre est ensuite livrée en plus d'une douzaine de pièces à New York et remontée par l'artiste, aidé de cinq assistants. L'œuvre est inaugurée à New York le 24 octobre 1972.

1. Annexes


1. = Articles connexes =

Œuvres de Jean Dubuffet Arbre biplan Liste des œuvres d'art de New York Sunken Garden, œuvre d'Isamu Noguchi réalisée en 1964 sur la Chase Manhattan Plaza

1. = Références =

Portail de l’art contemporain Portail de la sculpture Portail de New York

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Group of Four Trees (Jean Dubuffet)

Group of Four Trees is an abstract outdoor sculpture completed in 1972 by the French 20th-century artist Jean Dubuffet. Originally commissioned by the American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, the work measures 43 feet and is installed in the public plaza of 28 Liberty Street (formerly One Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza) between Nassau Street and Pine Street in Financial District, Manhattan. Dubuffet, a leading figure in the Art Brut movement, considered Group of Four Trees as part of his Hourloupe series. The series, originating from ballpoint pen doodles in 1962, features flat, interlocking shapes and striated coloring in red, white, and blue against black backgrounds. At the time of installation, Group of Four Trees was the largest outdoor sculpture in New York City and was said to have dramatized "the increasing environmental interdependence between architecture and outside sculpture" in the 1970s. It was Dubuffet's first outdoor sculpture installed in the United States.

Art Landmark

Financial District, Manhattan

The Financial District of Lower Manhattan, also known as FiDi, is a neighborhood located on the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the West Side Highway on the west, Chambers Street and City Hall Park on the north, Brooklyn Bridge on the northeast, the East River to the southeast, and South Ferry and the Battery on the south. The City of New York was created in the modern-day Financial District in 1624, and the neighborhood roughly overlaps with the boundaries of the New Amsterdam settlement in the late 17th century. The district comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city's major financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Anchored on Wall Street in the Financial District, New York City has been called both the leading financial center and the most economically powerful city of the world, and the New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Financial District, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, NASDAQ, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. The Financial District is part of Manhattan Community District 1, and its primary ZIP Codes are 10004, 10005, 10006, 10007, and 10038. It is patrolled by the 1st Precinct of the New York City Police Department.

Landmark Neighbourhood

28 Liberty Street

28 Liberty Street, formerly known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza, is a 60-story International Style skyscraper between Nassau, Liberty, William, and Pine Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), opened in 1961. It is 813 feet (248 m) tall. 28 Liberty Street occupies only about 28 percent of its 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) site. It consists of 60 above-ground stories, a ground-level concourse, and five basement levels. The tower is surrounded by a plaza that contains a sunken Japanese rock garden, designed by Isamu Noguchi, to the south. The building's design is similar to that of SOM's earlier Inland Steel Building in Chicago. It contains a stainless steel facade with black spandrels below the windows. The superstructure contains 40 steel columns, arranged around the perimeter and clustered around the core to maximize usable space. When the tower opened, it accommodated 7,500 employees but contained only 150 private offices. David Rockefeller, then executive vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank, proposed the tower in the 1950s as a means to keep the newly merged bank (Chase National and the Manhattan Company) in Lower Manhattan while merging its 8,700 employees into one facility. Construction started in early 1957, and the building's tower opened in early 1961. One Chase Manhattan Plaza was nearly fully occupied from its opening, with numerous financial and legal tenants. The building's basements and plaza opened in 1964; during its early years, the structure faced some early challenges such as the discovery of weakened facade panels, a fire, and a bombing. The building was renovated in the early 1990s, and Chase moved its headquarters out in 1997. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 2008. Chase Manhattan's parent company, JPMorgan Chase, sold the building to Fosun International, a Chinese investment company, in 2013; the building was subsequently renamed 28 Liberty Street.

Government Landmark

Our Lady of Victory Church (Manhattan)

The Church of Our Lady of Victory, also known as the War Memorial Church, is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 60 William Street on the northeast corner of William Street and Pine Street in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1944, during World War II, by Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York and Apostolic Vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces from December 11, 1939, to December 2, 1967, at a time when "victory in the war was in sight but not yet assured." A quote from Cardinal Spellman greets worshipers at the front door: "This Holy Shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of Victory in Thanksgiving for Victory won by our valiant dead, our soldier’s blood, our country’s tears, shed to defend men’s rights and win back men’s hearts to God." A Soldier's Shrine is in the lower chapel, and the Teresa Benedicta Auschwitz Memorial in the lobby commemorates a victim of the Holocaust. A 9-11 Remembrance Book is displayed. Today, the church primarily serves as a place for daytime worship, rather than as a neighborhood church.

Church Landmark

56 Pine Street

56 Pine Street – originally known as the Wallace Building after its developer, James Wallace – at 56-58 Pine Street between Pearl and William Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City, was built in 1893-94 and was designed by Oscar Wirz in the Romanesque Revival style. The building's facade consists of brick, stone and terra cotta and features colonnettes, deeply inset windows and rounded arched openings. The flowered panels and fantastic heads which embellish the building is "some of the finest Byzantine carving in New York." The building was designated a New York City landmark in 1997 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a NRHP district created in 2007.

Historic Site Landmark