UPPER EAST SIDE — Orchid sculptures as tall as a three-story building will sprout up at Central Park in March.
A pair of stainless steel flowers rising 34 and 28 feet will be installed in the park on the corner of East 60th Street and Fifth Avenue beginning March 1, according to the Public Art Fund, which is curating the exhibition.
In the exhibit — called "Two Orchids" by German artist Isa Genzken — metal vines climb up two metal shafts and blossom into white flowers at the top.
The orchid appears "almost cartoon-like in this larger-than-life, doubled version," said Nicholas Baume, the fund's director and chief curator. "For Genzken the decorative neutrality of the orchid makes it the quintessential flower of our period — ubiquitous, porous to meaning, and global."
"Rose II," another flower sculpture by Genzken, was installed on the facade of the New Museum in the Lower East Side from 2010 to 2013, according to the fund. Her work has been featured around the world, including at the Modern Museum of Art.
Two Orchids will be on display at Central Park's Doris C. Freedman Plaza, at East 60th Street and Fifth Avenue, from March 1 through Aug. 21.
The flowers will be on display at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park on March 1 through August 21, 2016.