JPMorganChase commissioned major works from American sculptor Maya Lin, German painter Gerhard Richter, American artist Leo Villareal, British architect Norman Foster, and digital art pioneer Refik Anadol for its new global headquarters at 270 Park Avenue in New York. These works were revealed when the building, designed by architecture firm Foster + Partners, officially opened this month.
At street level, Maya Lin’s A Parallel Nature is a focal point for a new public plaza on Madison Avenue. The stone installation draws from New York’s geological foundation, referencing the city’s natural bedrock and the rock formations throughout Central Park. Inside the tower, though visible from the street, Gerhard Richter’s large-scale paintings Color Chase One and Color Chase Two line the Park Avenue lobby. Each work is composed of interlocking geometric shapes made from aluminum..
Leo Villareal’s light installation Celestial Passage crowns the 1,388-foot building’s exterior, while Norman Foster’s Wind Dance, a 3-D printed bronze column containing a flag synchronized with the airflow outside, is positioned in the lobby. Nearby, Anadol’s Living Building transforms the elevator banks into dynamic, AI-driven light displays.
The new headquarters is one of New York’s largest office developments in recent years. The five newly commissioned artworks will be experienced by an office population of some 10,000 employees, plus thousands of daily visitors to the 2.5-million square-foot building.
JPMorganChase’s official art collection was started in 1959 by David Rockefeller, who served as the company’s CEO from 1969 to 1980. Today, the collection boasts more than 30,000 works of art, including pieces by Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê, Native American artist Jeffrey Gibson, and American photographer Thalia Gochez, among many others. A selection of the collection, including work by Josef Albers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jenny Holzer, was presented in an exhibition at the Bronx Museum in 2009.
