Jene Highstein Totem

In 1979, the Public Art Fund began assisting Jene Highstein (1942–2013, b. Baltimore, MD) in finding a site for the temporary exhibition of a recently completed work. The sculpture stands at 6’1” with a base diameter of 2’6”, and weighs 7,000 pounds. Public Art Fund received permission from the Department of Transportation to install this piece of a traffic island at West Broadway between Chambers and Hudson Streets. This installation inaugurates a series of exhibitions at this site, and the Public Art Fund has adopted an informal policy of giving exhibition priority to artists living in neighborhoods near this traffic island.