Clouds by Olaf Bruening
Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets
On Display through March 2027

Six monumental cloud sculptures have landed in the Garment District, bringing a touch of the sky to the heart of Midtown Manhattan.

Created by internationally acclaimed Swiss artist Olaf Breuning, Clouds transforms the Broadway pedestrian plazas with a playful exploration of nature, scale and the urban environment. Suspended on slender structural frames and reaching heights of up to 33 feet, the sculptures translate the lightness and impermanence of clouds into monumental forms of steel and aluminum.

Set against the architecture, traffic and constant movement of Midtown, Clouds invites passersby to pause, look upward and experience the neighborhood from a different perspective.

First conceived in 2013, Clouds was inspired by Breuning’s 2008 photograph of the same name. Working with Metro Pictures and curator Andria Hickey, Breuning translated the image into a large-scale outdoor installation, with 4th State Metals developing the construction plans and fabricating the sculptures.

The work was first presented by Public Art Fund at Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast entrance to Central Park. It later traveled to the CASS Sculpture Foundation in Goodwood, England, in 2018 and Art Omi in Ghent, New York, in 2020.

Now back in New York City, Clouds takes on a new setting among the buildings and bustle of the Garment District.

Olaf Breuning is a Swiss-born artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, photography, drawing, installation and film.

Known for his playful use of familiar imagery and everyday forms, Breuning creates work that encourages viewers to reconsider their surroundings. In Clouds, the soft, ephemeral form of a cloud is transformed into a permanent structure of steel and aluminum, creating contrasts between nature and the built environment, lightness and structure, and movement and stillness.

Clouds is presented by the Garment District Alliance as part of its year-round Art on the Plazas program, in partnership with NYC DOT Art and presented with Debra Simon Art Consulting and Studio DanReiser.

The Garment District Alliance’s public art program brings contemporary art directly into the public realm, transforming the neighborhood’s plazas into spaces for discovery, creativity and connection.

Clouds is free and open to the public through March 2027.