TOVAR The Chair stood on Broadway Plaza between 45th and 46th Streets from September 15 through November 15, 2024. TheNakedNYC documented the 13-foot stainless-steel sculpture, which enlarged Dominican surrealist Iván Tovar's La Chaise Adulte into a public work for Times Square.
TheNakedNYC Coverage
YouTube: TOVAR The Chair on Broadway Plaza
Instagram: Tovar's Surrealism at Street Level
What to Know
A Painting Became Monumental
Tovar created La Chaise Adulte as an oil painting in 1969. He revisited the form in bronze in 1971 and 2013 before the work became a four-meter public sculpture in 2024.
Intertwined Human Forms
The chair is not functional furniture. Male and female bodies curve into a throne-like structure, combining anatomy with the dream logic and symbolic ambiguity that shaped Tovar's surrealist language.
Stainless Steel Changed the Surface
The monumental version used polished stainless steel for strength and outdoor durability. Its reflective surface pulled pedestrians, signs, light, and Times Square color into the sculpture throughout the day.
Two Months on Broadway Plaza
The installation opened September 15, the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and remained through November 15. Its site near Seventh Avenue placed Dominican modern art before a large international audience.
Tovar's Path Through Surrealism
Born in the Dominican Republic in 1942, Tovar studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo before moving to Paris in 1963. He developed his mature surrealist practice there and later returned to the Dominican Republic.
A Foundation's First New York Project
The Iván Tovar Foundation was established in 2021 to preserve and extend the artist's legacy. TOVAR The Chair became its first public-art initiative in New York, supported by collector Héctor José Rizek Sued and a multidisciplinary production team.
Public Art as Cultural Memory
The project joined Tovar's Dominican identity, his international career, and the scale of Times Square. Capa Esculturas' project record confirms the material, dimensions, location, and 2024 display dates.