JAUME PLENSA One Tought Fills Immensity JAUME One Tought Fills Immensity PLENSA In memory of Richard Gray Contents

Cover First published in Italy in 2018 by Richard Gray Gallery 13 Jaume Plensa: Introduction La Llarga Nit (Blind), 2010. Skira editore S.p.A. 875 North Michigan Avenue Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Palazzo Casati Stampa Clare Lilley 38th Floor Yorkshire Sculpture Park, via Torino 61 Chicago, IL 60611 West Bretton, UK, 2011 20123 Milano 21 Jaume Plensa, Sculptor of Images Italy 2044 West Carroll Avenue Design www.skira.net Chicago, IL 60612 Catherine Millet Marcello Francone © 2018 Jaume Plensa for his works 1018 Madison Avenue Editorial Coordination 31 © 2018 The authors for their texts 4th Floor Secret Garden Emma Cavazzini © 2018 Richard Gray Gallery, New York, NY 10075 Paul Gray Copy Editor Chicago richardgraygallery.com Emily Ligniti © 2018 Skira editore 45 © Jaume Pensa by SIAE 2018 Jaume Plensa and the Refresh on Beauty Layout Brooke Kamin Rapaport Paola Ranzini Edited by All rights reserved under Jennifer Rohr McMillan Translations international copyright 205 Inside Out: Plensa’s Works for Public Space Paul Metcalfe for Scriptum, Rome Publication Production conventions. (Catherine Millet’s essay) Becky Daniel Jeremy Strick No part of this book may be Nico Gardner reproduced or utilized in any Chloe Lundgren form or by any means, electronic 261 Toughts on Two Decades of Collaboration Raven Falquez Munsell or mechanical, including Fumio Nanjo photocopying, recording, or any Special thanks to information storage and retrieval Laura Medina, Natalia Rico, and 267 system, without permission Ariadna Vila at the Plensa Studio Image Checklist in writing from the publisher. for their invaluable expertise 279 Bibliography and support. Printed and bound in Italy. 281 Select Exhibitions, Public Projects, First edition Museum and Public Collections, Awards ISBN: 978-88-572-3464-9

Distributed in USA, Canada, Central & South America by ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 75, Broad Street Suite 630, New York, NY 10004, USA. Distributed elsewhere in the world by Thames and Hudson Ltd., 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX, United Kingdom. “An artist must generate something much more important than his work, a new attitude to things. When William Blake wrote this wonderful sentence, “One thought flls immensity,” Blake was not defning sculpture in a physical way of flling space, but as a source of energy, of vibration, which emanates from things which exist in space. Our thoughts are a vibration, a sound coming from our body.”

Jaume Plensa

Te artist in his studio, 2015 Photo: © Catherine Panchout

8

Clare Lilley Jaume Plensa: Introduction

n Lightness, one of his Six Memos for the Next hinterlands. The apparent simplicity of early Millennium, Italo Calvino wrote of his need to Romanesque speaks of the relationship between the travel; to have a sense of being unfixed in order for largely illiterate of ordinary society and the royalty, Icreativity to fulfill its potential. For Calvino, returning to aristocracy, and church that ruled them—imagery that these places was especially fruitful, allowing for both prefaces the more sophisticated and intricate practical familiarity and the intellectual frisson of the representation of the same subjects of the Renaissance new and unknown. For some thirty years, Jaume Plensa and later. The carefully preserved apses and church has traversed the globe, often living away from his relics highlight an early engagement with art in the home city of Barcelona and acquiring the ability to public realm and its ability to communicate to all levels communicate in six languages. This nomadic practice, of society. Via the Crusades, the Romanesque also linked to his studio in Barcelona and a vital professional began to portray and articulate a complex relationship and personal relationship with his wife Laura Medina, between a nascent Europe and Middle East—one that engenders an approach that has resulted in exceptional over the centuries has grown in importance and which exhibitions and some of the world’s most successful loudly reverberates. public sculptures. The necessity of journeying in pursuit Medieval contemplation of the liminal space that of understanding is a metaphor for self-discovery and both touches and separates the earthly and divine, enlightenment that prevails in cultures across the globe and of the sacerdotal functions of ordained priests, is and across time. In Plensa’s work we find sublime seen in artifacts of the Romanesque period. This vertical expression of the human condition. impulse, which like light connects human activity There are Christian artworks that speak to every with the spiritual, has for many years absorbed Plensa, faith of the anguish, loss, and potential of the dying resulting in works such as the column of light emitted and dead Christ. Hans Holbein the Younger’s The into the night sky in Breathing, 2005 (figs. 3, 181), at the 2. La Llarga Nit (Blind), 2010. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521, in the British Broadcasting House in London. Less literally, Kunstmuseum Basel and the polychrome wooden other sculptures share the same intent, most particularly crucifix, dating to around 1468, in the Basilica the tall, white heads of girls, such as Dream, 2009 of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice are two such works. (figs. 4, 166), on Merseyside, England and Echo, 2011 A third, a wooden Romanesque Descent from the (fig. 191), in Madison Square Park, New York. Here, Cross, in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in the slimmed and anamorphic aspect of the girls gives Barcelona, stops visitors in their tracks and a well-worn their lucid dreams a distance that reaches far beyond subject is suddenly poignant, overwhelming in its their material size, connecting the viewer to the skies intense pity and grace. This museum, which houses above and to their own core; to realms of possibility. entire apses rescued from Romanesque churches Plensa initially intended to train as a doctor, and during the Spanish Civil War, was an early sanctuary throughout his artistic practice he has been captivated Previous pages: 1. House of Knowledge, 2008. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011. Collection Textile Fashion Center, Borås, Sweden for the young Plensa, its treasures speaking of so many by the human body, although in his hands it is a vessel

12 13 sculptures, and on many occasions I have witnessed A route of intellectual engagement with literature complete strangers come together within the galaxy and philosophy unfolds across Plensa’s life. He draws of Plensa: extraordinary conversations and exchanges on diverse sources, from the biblical Song of have taken place that otherwise would not have Solomon, François Rabelais and William Blake to happened. Plensa’s sculpture is a place and in this William Faulkner, indicating the artist’s engagement place, people connect with one another, with the work; with fundamental thinking about humankind. they actually become part of the work. The sculptures Following grueling imprisonment, the sixteenth- are also places that offer privacy, silence, and reflection century Spanish mystic priest and poet, St. John so that within the maelstrom of contemporary life, they of the Cross, devoted himself to studying the growth become sanctuary. And like Monteverdi’s Magnificat of the soul. He wrote “the endurance of darkness is vespers, which so eloquently and passionately speak preparation for great light”1 and such duality persists of the divine and the erotic, they express both today in much Western thought. Carl Jung asked the spiritual and the sensual. of himself “How can I be substantial if I cast no

3. Breathing, 2005, glass, stainless steel, and light, 1,000 cm high. 4. Dream, 2009, concrete and Spanish dolomite, 2,000 x 1,700 x 1,700 cm. BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, UK Sutton Manor Colliery, St. Helens, UK

for the soul. Through the face, body, vertical perspective to a worldview that is not burdened by momentum, vibration, and light, Plensa characterizes boundaries. Plensa’s sculptures and drawings the best versions of ourselves and communicates the deliberately depict many different cultures and potential of humankind; the intangible that faiths and ethnicities, while the Self-Portraits, 2005–2006, portray philosophies have sought to embody and describe. the artist in the guise of other people of different ages, Large drawings made in the late 1980s emphasize the genders, and ethnicities. The summation is an function of the heart and other organs. Later, a drawing unequivocal statement that we all are humankind. of the human skeleton is attributed with geographic Like the sound waves produced by the struck locations, our bodies synonymous with landforms to gongs of the Song of Solomon, correlating to a central which we have given names and categorization. In 2001, tenet in his thinking of William Blake’s words, “one drawings of the continents and oceans are given human thought fills immensity,” the sensory impact of Plensa’s identity through the addition of a single human eye. work ripples boundlessly. The public nature of the One feels the artist looking across impossible distances, frescoed chapel, transmitter of biblical stories and

seeing these geographies in a single gaze, and giving of faith, is embraced and developed in his public 5. Jerusalem, 2006. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011

14 15 sculptural “families” are linked to Rabelais’s story In this he extends an inquiry that in the twentieth of Gargantua and Patagruel in which spoken words century is often associated with the work of Barbara form into ice and fill the air with crystal clarity before Hepworth and Henry Moore; in amplifying an spangling to the ground. We run our hands across understanding of sculpture’s formal properties, these the curtains, walk through the shimmering stainless artists pierced the volume to introduce light and space steel characters, listen to the chink and chime, feeling into mass, but also to reveal a philosophical interior. the multi-dimensionality of the written and spoken Their experience of a world at war led them to uphold word, of human exchange, the exquisite tool of both ideals of peace and freedom and a humanitarian the literate and unschooled. Here the word is made impulse reverberates through their work, with the physical and the notion of touch, which gives physical apertures connoting an essential spirit within that understanding to substance—the human caress—is correlates to both human and landscape forms. essential to an understanding of Plensa’s work. The concept of the human body as container is played This dematerialization of mass is also central: out across Plensa’s career. In Itinerari, 1981, two vessels of bright glass; light that casts shadows or open-framed boxes infer slightly oversized human pervades alabaster, resin, and glass; carapace of steel dimensions, strung with pulleys and weights that imply mesh, letters, and symbols are open fretworks through a simplified limbic or pulmonary system. Massive iron which light filters. Each is both symbolically and sculptures such as Gos, 1985 (fig. 31), are more clearly literally charged by natural or electric light. Stationed related to the human and animal form and these on the east-west axis of the Basilica of San Giorgio visceral works transmit ancient processes and chthonic Maggiore, the steel fretwork outlining a girl’s head forces, while Cap, 1988, offers the promise of issue called Mist, 2014 (figs. 6, 145), faced the altar and in and of metamorphosis. Meanwhile, Glassman II, 2004 the cupola above, Plensa suspended a hand, Together, (fig. 8), is a literal translation of the human form 6. Mist, 2014. Installation view of Together, Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, 2014 (figs. 7, 144), formed from the letters of eight in glass that, by visibly containing red wine, functions 7. Together, 2014. Installation view of Together, Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 world alphabets—Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, as a kind of chalice or vascular system, so conveying Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and Latin. This intricate an earthly transubstantiation. The glowing glass tracery of characters, forming a number of the artist’s cell-like works, such as Conversation, 2000, are shadow?”2 The allegory of Plato’s Cave—in which our works, is a metaphor for the breadth of expression constructed as rooms into which we step to be entirely standing resolute. Subverting weight, inertia, shadows are cast by fire against the wall of the cave— and cultures that make up humanity, articulating alone, hearing little except the blood coursing and opacity and emphasizing beauty are qualities elucidates the notion of truth, deepening our Plensa’s notion of the “poetry of diversity.”3 In a world through our bodies. that magnetize viewers, who come together at the understanding of what it is to be human. Light is disrupted by zealotry and enmity, melded language In recent years, cast iron has re-entered Plensa’s base of Plensa’s sculptures in city squares, buildings, Plensa’s principal medium and his careful handling of serves as an image for reasoned communication. realm in portraits, seven meters high, and while dark parks, and elsewhere. Plensa’s vision is utopian, the element, its interplay with material and shadow, As well as subverting materiality, works such and physically heavy, they are nevertheless sleek bringing to mind the opening words of Aristotle’s lead us to the infinite potential of the mind and soul. as Mist explore interiority: “ . . . we are so beautiful and seemingly weightless, standing almost as vertical Politics: “Every State is a community of some kind, Over the course of his life, texts and poetry have outside but you can’t believe how beautiful we are shadows. Similarly, there are smaller works in dense, and every community is established with a view to guided and in some ways shared Plensa’s inside.”4 Plensa shows us that the skin is a hinterland black basalt and in timber, sometimes with a charred some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain development. Since the late 1980s, excerpts and beyond which lies an intimate interior, and there surface. Formed from the coordinates of actual that which they think good.”5 Plensa’s implied diverse alphabets have played an important role is a clear trajectory from early projects that indicate three-dimensional scans, the portraits are slightly optimism for a world community is rooted in an in both sculptures and works on paper. The vast mapping and then Global Positioning Systems elongated and sometimes flattened; they slip into imaginative connection with other people and other curtains of raining letters that make up one of his to those today which navigate the inward form. space, enclosing the light and territory about them, lives; within this lies the social purpose of his work.

16 17 To represent such an expansive practice as Jaume Plensa’s in a single exhibition is an impossible venture and this publication offers an opportunity to present a demanding progression that will reveal unexpected turns. An intelligent constancy in Plensa’s investigation of the condition of sculpture will be apparent, and so, too, will an extraordinary aptitude for manipulating new and ancient materials by using both well-worn and contemporary processes, often adapted from other disciplines. Given the deep-seated haptic qualities of Plensa’s art, it is a curious fact that few sculptures bear the mark of his hand, instead being produced through mechanical and digital processes. This deliberate strategy demonstrates how Plensa embraced minimalist methods and indeed he has removed gesture from his sculpture. Instead, impassive faces with closed eyes, stillness, sound or its absence, light and shadow, and the shells of crouching and kneeling figures speak for themselves without flourish. The connections they make with viewers are through the strength of the image, material and immateriality,

and in their scale and relationship to environment. 9. Isabella Whispering, 2016, marble, 220 x 73 x 110 cm In this way, they function as abstract sculpture. Even works on paper barely betray expression from the artist’s hand: ethnographic and pornographic images together with self-portraits and those of family, friends, is minimal and emphasizes stillness—the moment that composers, and writers that have been overworked St. John of the Cross characterized as “mute music.”6 with “found” texts and ink that, while applied by Plensa’s exploration of quietude throughout a Plensa, is allowed to drip and take its course. Most forty-year career constitutes a powerful statement, recently, the pencil on paper and wall drawings of disclosed across these pages. sleeping faces are a concession towards the artist’s

hand and his graphic prowess. Yet the mark is so Clare Lilley is Director of Programme and Head Curator slight, almost ephemeral, that even here the gesture at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire, UK.

1 St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the 3 Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2011, in conversation Bridegroom, http://www.ecatholic2000.com/stjohn/spirso31.shtml with Clare Lilley. Accessed 02.08.17. 4 Jaume Plensa, L’Âme des Mots. Antibes: Musée Picasso, 2010, p. 30. 2 “The Practice of Psychotherapy,” in Collected Works Texts by Jaume Plensa, Jean-Louis Andral, Olivier Kaeppelin. of C. G. Jung. Princeton: Princeton University Press, vol. 16, 5 Aristotle, Politics, 350 BC, trans. Benjamin Jowett, http://classics.mit. p. 59, https:// carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog Accessed edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html Accessed 22.07.17 8. Glassman II, 2004. Installation view of Glückauf?, Stifung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, 2005 15.07.17 6 St. John of the Cross, Op. cit.

18 19 Catherine Millet Jaume Plensa, Sculptor of Images

n an interview granted while preparing the major of which they were made, all about same size, about installation in the Basilica of San Giorgio 1.8 meters tall, the average height of a Western man. Maggiore parallel to the Venice Biennale of 2015, There, other memories came to mind: the long ranks IJaume Plensa was faced with this improbable of replicas of the same sculpted figure as seen at Karnak question: “What is beauty for you?” The sheer range in Egypt (which is indeed a point of reference for the of possible answers would have left most of us at artist, as I later discovered) and the standing stones a loss, but he was not in the least disconcerted: of Celtic Carnac, stubbornly bearing witness to a religion “Beauty is something that stabs us in the head even even older than the menhirs themselves (an association though we cannot describe it.”1 reinforced by the way the rough hewn block of alabaster Dear Jaume, I felt this blade piercing my head or basalt is left visible at the back of some of the heads). a few months later on climbing the steps to enter Africa and the enigmatic beauty of the heads from Ife the Palladian church and seeing the milky light of its could, however, also be recalled by the perfection interior pulverized in a steel mesh, a simultaneously of these perfectly smooth faces, as could the Middle rigid and mobile sail billowing about 5 meters in all its Ages and the elegance of the members bearing the dimensions, in which I gradually discerned the features arches of cathedrals by their elongation. of a gigantic head of a girl with her eyes closed. While This is why I initially accounted for the powerful this is not something I am about to forget, how am I to attraction of these works by the way they combined describe it? The appearance and disappearance of the great formal purity, visual immediacy, which also masks eyebrows, nose, lips, ears, and chignon in delicate their technical complexity, and the richness and relief, as though sculpted in light and endowed with diversity of the associations they arouse without the the same instability? The massive piers of the edifice visitor necessarily being aware of them at once. These and the shadows of the visitors disturbing the harmony associations are so deeply embedded in the universal 10. Installation view of Anonymous, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA, 2011 of the head here and there? What moved me most? culture and in some cases connected with such The serenity of this apparition? Its impalpable a primitive human instinct that they are buried deep presence in a place of solemn worship? Or the fact in the innermost self of every one of us regardless that the head, turned towards the choir but not even of the civilization to which we are heirs and our level of glancing at it, conjured up a whole series of other culture. They belong to the unconscious of humanity. images—impassive Buddhas deeply absorbed They bear witness to the first acts with which mankind in meditation or Renaissance Madonnas gazing down addressed the space and time of the world. on the repentant—in the imagination? Taking up the simplicity of these acts, but with I walked the few steps out of the light to the no archaism, and rediscovering the ladder whereby instead very dark corridor housing the rest of the mankind rose above itself, but with no undue exhibition: five large heads, again of girls, exaggeratedly emphasis, Plensa’s works arouse a strong emotion that elongated but with features as pure as the alabaster combines to an equal degree our admiration for their

20 21 that are themselves blocks of light, such as Tattoo V, hence the great interest in transparency. Jaume Plensa 2004 (fig. 13), made of resin with interior lights. recalls his impatience to know what is written on the Crouching or folded only themselves, they retain other side of the page he is reading, hence the Libre the massive, compact appearance of the cast iron de Vidre of 1982. He speaks of his desire to explore sculptures but differ from them in terms of height. the human body beneath the skin, hence the Plensa hung some on the wall above the visitors’ spectacular The Secret Heart, 2014 (fig. 14), in heads—e.g. Doors of Jerusalem, 2006, and Where Augsburg as well as the scenery designed for Are You?, 2007—and perched others on top Debussy’s opera Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien in 1997 of columns in an urban setting above the crowds and the striking costumes that transformed the singers of passers-by, like Conversation à Nice, 2007 into anatomical figures. Can Plensa not be seen here (figs. 164, 195), and Set Poets, 2014. He calls them as expressing a curiosity preserved since childhood, “angels” but “angels too big to fly.” the instinct of a child driven by a thirst for discovery who breaks a doll to see what is inside or opens a door The Body Is A Place to a forbidden room? Now illuminated, the sculpture was soon to decrease in weight. The motif of the sitting or kneeling figure The Disappearance of the Support (a cast of the artist’s body) was developed in a mesh In 1993, Plensa created an environment that is of metal letters welded to one another.2 The figure also claustrophobic but rich in promise: thirty-eight iron opened up. The first work in this series, Tel Aviv Man I, 2003, is only the front of a man, the face, the chest, and the tops of the thighs. An unfinished man, a sculpture resting neither on the ground nor on a plinth, 11. Installation view of Together, Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore and Ofcina dell’Arte Espirituale, like a slash in space, forcing space to fold and close up Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 again. As though the body were a contraction of space. The form of the body was then to become more modernity and technical prowess, and the always attempt. The artist tells us that the idea of illuminating complete but rarely finished. The face is missing in primary impetus with which humankind projects itself them from within came from gazing entranced at the most cases. If Tel Aviv Man, Kneeled Shadow, 2008, in its abode of sky and earth. molten metal. The inaugural work of this new approach and the limbs of the composition titled Tolerance, was La Neige Rouge, 1991 (fig. 12): a cube of iron 2011, have a nose, the other “letters” have no face, Bathed in Light elements with neon lights inside spreading a red glow, their heads are open to the wind, turned towards the These serene heads of great beauty that “we cannot a place that visitors can enter to receive this fiery horizon like Nomade, 2007 (fig. 179), on the walls in describe” have escaped the Inferno, so to speak. “snow” on their bodies. This was followed by numerous front of the museum in Antibes. The most monumental The Inferno of the forge. Plensa made heavy sculptures other “cells,” most of which could by entered in the can be entered like the “cells.” Insofar as the original of iron and then cast iron in the early 1990s, dark, same way to bathe the body in intense light. In some model is a cast of the artist’s body, these works can be compact volumes that already attested, however, cases, they were also audio environments where the regarded as self-portraits. The sculptor therefore to a presence of the body and established a virtual visitor was immersed in the sound of the blood welcomes his public into the representation of his own relationship with it. Some were fitted, for example, circulating in the veins of their creator, the artist. body, making his body a place. with rings or handles as if for seizing hold of them, To continue the story in my own way, I would say This idea of a permeable body probably stems 12. La Neige Rouge, 1991. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, even though they would have firmly resisted any such that these luminous baths gave rise to the large bodies from the age-old desire to see through matter and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000

22 23 doors positioned at regular intervals along the walls for the “angels” and the resin coated with powdered and very true to life portraits that Calder made of some foremost a sculptor, however, and thus a sculptor of of a room, each lit by a sinister light bulb and, needless marble of some heads, paraffin wax has a soft, velvety of his friends. The line can be lost. Some mesh heads immateriality, far from the stereotype of the muscular to say, impossible for visitors to open. But did the appearance that gives the illusion of decreasing of average size and figures made of steel letters have artist attacking stone, wood, or iron with his tools. The child-in-the-artist, fleeing from the sad and closed weight. This was soon followed by airy figures of fine no base and thus look unfinished, as though unravelling. idea for the mesh works came from the scans of heads world, not arrive perhaps on the other side? The mesh and portraits of girls encountered all over I know of no work more paradoxical than that of seen on a computer screen, reduced to the grid of a 3D installation was entitled Wonderland (fig. 98). The artist the world, not transparent but vertically elongated to Jaume Plensa, the work of a sculptor who declares that image. The transposition of these scans into the three did not go through the looking-glass here but toppled become as slender as possible. “material is never fundamental” for him and even that dimensions of concrete space entails an enormous into another dimension on the other side of a door. In speaking of his interest in Calder, Plensa once he would like “to make the support disappear.” An aim effort of adaptation, as the “grid” would otherwise not A dimension where bodies can take on very different manifested his surprise at this and added that there is best achieved of course in the drawings executed be viable. In any case, placed in this space, the large scales and be seen through. Rather than the opacity of little connection between his own work and that of the directly on a wall. Fleeting shadows of eyelids, the line heads of mesh create the illusion of existing in a virtual cast iron, the sculptor used translucent alabaster, glass, inventor of mobiles. There is one link, however, namely of a nose, the ellipse of a nostril, and a slit between lips space, they de-realize their environment, as though and nylon. Wonderland II, 1997 (fig. 97), saw the use of drawing in space. The wire of one and the steel mesh traverse the neutral space of the wall before the outline introducing the aura of the elastic space from which paraffin, which is also found in works on paper showing of the other extend in space in the same way as a pencil of the face to which they belong has even been drawn. they come into the space we inhabit. Through the doors grotesque bodies and faces of indefinite shape, line on a sheet of paper. Apart from their scale, Plensa’s A face no more substantial than one glimpsed through of Wonderland, Plensa comes and goes in the space including a self-portrait. Like the polyester resin used large heads of mesh can be compared to the small the window of a moving train. Plensa is first and of his dream, where forms are infinitely malleable.

13. Tattoo V, 2004. Installation view of Glückauf?, Stifung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, 2005 14. Te Secret Heart / Das Geheimherz, 2014. Installation view of Te Secret Heart, Gaskessel, Augsburg, Germany, 2014

24 25 In addition to two mesh heads, the 2017 This “conversation” is visible through an for anyone to take up the risky art of portraiture images. The second, magnificent idea was to select exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne in Saint-Étienne uninterruptedly diffused mist. These heads are more nowadays, in the era of the selfie and Facebook. Far very young people whose features do not yet bear the featured five of cast iron (2015) that are not only evanescent when enveloped in billions of droplets from the more or less grimacing snapshots swallowed stigmata of life, whose personality is still being born. particularly tall but also slender in the extreme. Lou is of water. The large head in San Giorgio Maggiore was up at once in the maelstrom of the Internet, the artist’s We are therefore not in the presence of a personality 450 cm in height but only 53 cm in thickness. The already titled Mist, and could indeed suggest a kind aim was, however, precisely to create true portraits, that asserts itself—as in the large drawings of the early experience is very disconcerting for viewers, whose eye of fog hanging in the basilica, an anthropomorphic faces that go beyond physical appearance, that make 2000s, which present physical types, ethnically distinct understands that the heads are solid volumes, making cloud of the kind seen in fantasy painting. The it possible to intuit the person behind the façade and highly eloquent faces—but must on the contrary it possible to identify the faces, profiles, and hair, but metaphor of the cloud has thus come a long way. and that endow him or her with lasting presence. pay the utmost attention to almost imperceptible signs simultaneously perceives them as wholly devoid of It is a victory of the immaterial over the material, Sculptors have fewer means than painters to make and hints of expression. The personality of the women thickness, standing out against the white background of the image over the object or the body, that Plensa the personality of their model manifest. They cannot so of the future barely shows through in these pretty faces of the walls like two-dimensional drawings or collages. invites us to consider all the way from the self-portrait easily transcribe the expression of the eyes, traditionally with calm, regular features. When they are presented This effect is obtained by markedly flattening the head of 2000—bearing witness to the traditional sculptural regarded as the “mirror of the soul.” Plensa’s first, to us as a group, as is often the case, the time it takes and staggering the profiles very slightly with respect to practice of taking an imprint of a real body in a splendid idea was to ask his models to keep their eyes to distinguish them slowly from one another gives one another. The arrangement of these hieratic heads substance that hardens and also recalling the death shut while being photographed. As a result, the closed the impression of seeing these personalities emerge in space at different angles, as though addressing one mask—to these immense heads of cast iron that seem eyelids and impenetrable expressions of these women, through morphing. I have noticed that in the presence another, enables the visitor to apprehend them straight no thicker than labels, or the heads that end up losing wrapped up in the depths of their thoughts, convey the of several of these heads, all generally of similar size away from different viewpoints, thus accentuating all substantiality in the halo enveloping them. But does sense of an inner life far better than most animated and made of the same material, my eye behaves as the tension between three-dimensional and this self-portrait as Banquo not already indicate two-dimensional representation to the utmost. the path to be followed? Is Banquo not the character who comes to haunt Macbeth? Is he not the ghost, Like a Cloud the image that survives his murdered body? Self-portrait as Banquo, a work on paper dated 2000, In Faces, Eine Geschichte des Gesichts, 2013, the attracts my attention for its somewhat alarming historian Hans Belting examines how, especially in our character, something exceptional in Plensa’s work. civilization, human beings have sought to preserve The center is occupied by the photograph of a head their faces through time in masks of plaster or wax, covered in plaster, presumably the artist having a cast busts of marble or bronze, paintings and photographs. of himself made for future works of sculptures. Words As he points out, however, regardless of the technique and figures on either side of the photo appear to list employed: “The portrait is the image of an image, as it the measurements and weight of the various parts represents a face that is already an image of the ego.” of his body and its organs. These are the raw data In other words, from time immemorial, we have all of a physical reality. composed a face, which is already more or less a mask, To summarize the course of Jaume Plensa’s work in order to present the reflection of our inner being to over the last seventeen years, since this image was others, or a false reflection in the case of tricksters, created, I shall now outline a project that he told me traitors, or crooks, who compose the face of someone about when I visited him before starting work on this they are not. essay and which he has since made, Love, 2017 Plensa acknowledges his qualms on creating the (fig. 17). This new creation comprises two heads first of his large, elongated heads, namely Dream, 2009 in resin covered in marble dust, placed face to face, (figs. 4, 166), installed on top of an old colliery spoil tip

one of a girl and the other, for the first time, of a boy. in England. It must indeed be admitted that it is rare 15. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, France, 2017

26 27 17. Love, 2017, polyester resin, stainless steel, marble dust, and water, 700 x 617 x 1,117 cm. Leeuwarden, Netherlands

though confronted with a painting by Ad Reinhardt, He recognized it at once and was, we imagine, absorbed in the contemplation of a spectacle of— deeply moved. almost—perfect uniformity. And the time required for Is it not because the father carried the image contemplation brings the unutterable delight of gently of his daughter in his mind that he was able to identify cracking and penetrating this uniformity. Lou, Julia, it immediately in surroundings where he did not Mar, Chloe, Isabella, Rui Rui, and the others thus expect to see it? And is it not because the sculpture detach their identity from matter. The works often bear captured the very essence of this image that the the names of their models as titles and each model encounter could take place? undergoes several incarnations in different materials. What a challenge the sculptor Jaume Plensa took up The same holds of course for the mesh portraits, in making us aware of the primacy of the image, except for the fact that in this case it is in the in making us realize so subtly that the important thing surrounding air that the viewer’s moving eye causes is not so much the beautiful object or even the them to emerge little by little. These works are so monumentality of a work that imposes its presence, but perfect as portraits that Plensa told me with some rather its ability to foster the moment of an apparition. pride that the father of one of his young models once visited a town where, unbeknown to him, a sculpture Catherine Millet is a Paris-based writer, critic, and founder of his daughter had been erected in a public space. of art press magazine.

1 Except where reference is specifically made to my own meeting with Interviews. Published by Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris. the artist, all the quotations and remarks appearing here are taken 2 A whole study is yet to be written on the recurrent presence 16. Chloe, 2016, polyester resin, stainless steel, and marble dust, 732 x 92 x 280 cm. Collection Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA from Jaume Plensa, Le Cœur Secret, Entretiens / The Secret Heart, of letters and text in Plensa’s work.

28 29 Paul Gray Secret Garden

hat is the artist trying to say?” Plensa says only: “I’m a contradiction. Know A most commonly asked question. better your shadow and you might better know In his reply, Jaume Plensa asks yourself. Of course I have a desire to capture, but if “W“Could you listen to me?” by which I believe he means I only succeed in occupying some cubic meters of air both will you and also are you able to hear that which with steel, or showing you something instantly familiar, is silent, to see that which is invisible? These are what have I captured?” I think it is friction between emphatically not rhetorical questions. He takes literally opposites that infuses his work with a kind of life we Elias Canetti’s admonishment that “understanding as have never exactly known, this friction that sparks an we understand it is misunderstanding.” intense curiosity in us. He is certainly not the first artist Plensa is well known to employ duality as both to sustain extreme anxiety and fierce self-confidence concept and materiality. Ephemeral materials such as and to somehow hold these opposing forces at one light and sound are juxtaposed in his varied oeuvre time. But it feels as if a distant fear he sometimes with steel and stone. Sometimes twin figures imply expresses that a work may be “disappearing,” seeing and being seen, translucent materials examine contributes to his ability to synthesize seemingly interior and exterior, and shadows contrast light and conflicting ideas in their moment of greatest friction— dark. Is an understanding of this practice important to when they are at their most illuminating, and indeed, the artist’s newest work—a series of heads each perhaps just before they burn out and disappear. As measuring about three meters in height? What does it Henri Cartier-Bresson termed it, “the decisive moment.” mean that he has chosen to portray their eyes closed? In these new sculptures, Plensa uses the extreme And the material—cast stainless steel, with a particular heat of the foundry, a heat that has burned in his work satiny finish which both captures and reflects light— since he first saw molten metal in the 1980s, together dematerializes its surroundings making it intentionally with the heat of contrasting ideas, ideas that have 18. Installation view of Secret Garden, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 hard to understand just what one is looking at. Equally simmered within his mind since his father read William daunting is the extreme shortening of visual Blake to him as a child, to form experiences for us that perspective, which because of preconceived teach us to listen and to know, and as importantly, understandings of perspective and point of view, to care. also alters the experience of space and time, as one moves about the sculptures. Paul Gray is Partner at Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago/New York.

30 31 19. Installation view of Secret Garden, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 pp. 34–40 20–24. Installation view of Secret Garden, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017

34

25. Rain, Tears, 2017, detail, mixed media, 30 x 22 cm

40 26. Installation view of Secret Garden, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 Brooke Kamin Rapaport Jaume Plensa and the Refresh on Beauty

aume Plensa’s work can get stuck, critically, on one resurrected in appraising Plensa’s recent work. word. Beauty. It is a word by which many writers Notably, his early sculpture from the 1980s and 1990s on the artist abide and that Plensa himself uses strayed dramatically from any idealization of the Jfrequently. It is a word that has so much history and, human form. His course has included inspiration from conversely, so little conclusive meaning that it can be abstraction, Cubism, Constructivism, Conceptualism, a roadblock toward a deeper assessment of Plensa’s and Surrealism. Though, Plensa’s work has developed body of work. Beauty has become a lightning rod—a from an interest in vanguard movements toward maligned term in contemporary art. Tied to aesthetics figuration—an unusual direction, as artists often begin and to the hoary attainment of perfection in the with the figure and veer from it. His current figures are human form, the term is considered outdated by the culmination of decades of studio practice that postmodern critics, feminist theorists, and some artists have seen sculptural discord, experimentation with who have rejected it. Yet Plensa told a curator in 2000: materials, innovation in subject matter, and, most “The real concern is for sculpture again to become recently, distinguishing everyday people in a source of beauty, posing the great fundamental monumental sculpture. In a landmark 1993 essay questions.”1 And in 2017, when interviewed for The on beauty—when that term was under siege—the art Brooklyn Rail, he stated: “If you try to dream, if you try critic Dave Hickey recognized that “beauty” had to understand what you are keeping inside yourself— a far-reaching role: “Yet the vernacular of beauty, in its the quantity of beauty that each human being has democratic appeal, remains a potent instrument inside themselves—your relationship will be more of change in this civilization. Mapplethorpe uses it, honest, more correct, more beautiful.”2 Famously, as does Warhol, as does Ruscha, to engage individuals not long after World War II, painter Barnett Newman within and without the cultural ghetto in arguments wrote: “The impulse of modern art was this desire to about what is good and what is beautiful.”6 In Plensa’s 27. Spiegel I, II, 2010, painted stainless steel, 377 x 235 x 245 cm each. Collection Te Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, USA destroy beauty.”3 But beauty is back—although past two decades of sculptural output, beauty is a perhaps in unexpected form, focused largely on defining trait. Yet the human figures that command his the human figure—and Plensa’s sculpture has work, and for which he is best known, are preceded by sanctioned and mobilized this seismic shift. years of audacious, non-figurative sculpture. Beauty has recently returned to the critical Much of the characterization of Plensa’s art discourse as a lodestar by which to guide a complex focuses on his recent human figures and portrait era.4 Figurative sculpture by Antony Gormley, Kevin heads. Though these works—coming after the artist’s Francis Gray, Charles Ray, Alison Saar, Judith Shea, and acclaimed The Crown Fountain (figs. 162, 177, 178), Kiki Smith—all peers of Plensa—have each redefined a public artwork installed in Chicago’s Millennium Park what is beauty by adding edge and anonymity to their in 2004—are only the gateway to the dialogue. One figurative sculpture.5 Beauty as a construct, a craving in scholar linked the refinement of the artist’s sculpture contemporary culture, and a linguistic tool can also be to his materials: “Plensa’s work evokes the ideals of

44 45 His 1763 “Essay on the Beautiful in Art” describes the and a stainless-steel sculpture of a homeless woman beholder of the work of art, the viewer, as fundamental sleeping on a bench. Kiki Smith (American, b. West to an object’s existence: “The capacity of perceiving German, 1954) brings religion, myth, and fairy tales to beauty in art is a concept which combines both her figures. And Antony Gormley (British, b. 1950) has the person and the object, the containing and the used scale, repetition, and his own body to realize his contained . . . ”10 His essay defined the role of the sculpture. Each of these artists, like Plensa, maintains a figure in art history as connected to the classical world commitment to the probity of the human figure. Some and established a new perspective on human slightly younger artists working today—including philosophy and interpretation. His quest for beauty, an Huma Bhabha (Pakistani, b. 1962), Thomas Houseago art historical standard for centuries, became outmoded (British, b. 1972), Matthew Monahan (American, once modernism fractured the human form for political b. 1972), and Rebecca Warren (British, b. 1965)—have and formal reasons. Even still, Winckelmann’s focused on the disintegration of the figure, or the perspective is curiously prescient for an artist like Plensa. fortification of the human form from fragmentation Winckelmann’s words seem to have predicted to wholeness. Though theirs is a different pursuit. how the human figure would become distorted and degraded centuries later. “We see that artists Barcelona even go wrong in portraits, in the proportion of the Jaume Plensa was born in Barcelona in 1955. His parts which they can see at peace and at will,” he mother Remei Suñé Solsona and father Pere Plensa wrote. “In some the head is smaller or larger, in others were both born in 1929. Plensa’s older brother, Josep it is the hands; sometimes the neck is too long or too Francesc, was born in 1952; another brother died when short, and so on.”11 The march towards an anti-beauty, Plensa was young. The artist’s parents were children 28. In the Midst of Dreams, 2009. Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA, 2009 which harshly fragmented the figure with Cubism during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, which in the early twentieth century, would then turn, one pitted pro-military Nationalist forces (supported hundred years later, by rejuvenating a beauty that by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany) against the artistic beauty of the past, in that the materials he uses one commentator, “some of the beauty and surprise bears the mark of the individual, summoning pro-established government Republicans, often city ‘allude to what they are not,’ that his art penetrates of In the Midst of Dreams derives from the contrast humanness in a complex era. or farm workers, and members of the educated middle the veil that distracts us from seeing a deeper spiritual of smooth, internally illuminated fiberglass heads with In the late twentieth century and into the twenty- class (assisted by the Soviet Union, Mexico, and some truth.”7 Another summoned the ancients: “With the matt, irregular surfaces of white marble pebbles.”9 first, figurative artists bring all means of resources to groups from Europe and the United States). As the tranquil expressions like those seen in sculptures of . . . Plensa’s work has been built steadily apart from trends the treatment of their subjects. There is not a cohesive capital of Catalonia, Barcelona supported the Spanish deities such as Athena or the Buddha, Jaume Plensa’s in contemporary art, towards a complex body of group or a specific, identifiable movement of artists Republic. The three-year war, which resulted in as figural works evince qualities—harmony, unruffled sculpture that demonstrates a careful trajectory from who work in the figurative realm. Nor is there an art many as 500,000 dead, saw the rise and ultimately beauty, purity—that have traditionally been thought to his earliest constructivist objects to an initial use of text historical label, such as Abstract Expressionism, secured the power of the military dictatorship of express the transcendence of time and place, to show in the work, to diminutive figures that push out from to unite the disparate experimentation. In the work General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from 1939 a state of being beyond the disturbances of the the wall, to translucent human-scale cells, to his of Alison Saar (American, b. 1956), for example, the until his death in 1975.12 Under Franco, even the world.”8 Plensa’s sculptural portraits of everyday best-known transcendent figures. female figure collides and unites with nature. Charles Catalan language was outlawed. With the dictatorship, people, including his installation In the Midst of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the eighteenth- Ray (American, b. 1953) pursues unexpected scale, “ . . . Spain tried to present itself as an ethnically and Dreams, 2009 (fig. 28), give unexpected grandeur to century German art historian, wrote about beauty geometry, materials, and obsessive realism in his art, politically homogeneous state. The execution of the individual rather than idealized imagery of the in the context of the Neoclassical movement and which has included a one-size-fits-all nude family Franco’s opponents continued after the end of the human form. They are in search of beauty and, says directed the field toward a reassessment of classical art. group, a stern outsized woman in a red business suit, Spanish Civil War . . . [After the war], the repression

46 47 29. Silent Rain, 2003. Installation view of Silent Rain, Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France, 2003. Collection Susan Camilli Foundation, New York, USA 30. Song of Songs, 2005, detail. Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany, 2016

was not only political but cultural, too. Catalan Fascism,’ and if you had asked me what I was fighting importance to him as a Barcelonan and as an artist. range, visible from Barcelona, in his work of this institutions were suppressed and Catalan was banned for, I should have answered: ‘Common decency.’”14 Of Guernica and Picasso’s figurative work based period. In one of his haunting sculptures, Mask of the in the school system.”13 The most significant cultural icon related to the on politics, Plensa says: “History touches us a lot in Screaming Montserrat, 1941–1942, an agonized In this climate, artists and writers who railed conflagration was Pablo Picasso’s (Spanish, 1881–1973) many ways. But we are always starting from zero. face—or death mask—cries out through an open against the war made compelling and highly political 1937 mural-size oil painting Guernica, provoked by the Picasso did both. He destroyed a body and he made mouth, the eyes torment as searing sockets. Plensa, statements. More than a decade before his dystopic bombings of the Basque town of Guernica, a the beauty of the body.”16 who once purchased a González sculpture, has noted novel 1984 was published in 1949, George Orwell Republican stronghold during the war. Picasso lived in Julio González (Spanish, 1876–1942), whose González’s relevance to Picasso and to the American wrote a first-person account of his leftist militia Barcelona between 1885 and 1904 and attended the welded-metal sculptures were seen as a breakthrough sculptor David Smith (American, 1906–1965). González, experience during the Spanish Civil War. Relating the Llotja School where Plensa also matriculated.15 Picasso in modernism, created several figurative works in Plensa believes, “was very contemporary in his concept.” reason for his enlisting in Homage to Catalonia, Orwell returned regularly to Barcelona throughout his life and response to the Spanish Civil War. The artist, who lived The popular Surrealist Salvador Dalí (Spanish, recounted: “If you had asked me why I had joined the a museum dedicated to him opened there ten years much of his life in France, considered himself a Catalan 1904–1989) realized paintings provoked by the Spanish militia I should have answered: ‘To fight against before his death. Plensa often cites Picasso’s and referred regularly to the Montserrat mountain Civil War, often with particularly gruesome, tortured

48 49 imagery, as in Soft Construction with Boiled Beans chose to remain in Barcelona. “Probably my parents Plensa recalls shopping with his mother when Testament. He used the biblical Song of Songs to (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, where a harrowing were part of the generation that could not realize their he was a child and being fascinated with the light generate a curtain that revealed the mysteries of and figure destroys itself. Plensa has mentioned that Dalí, own ideas because of the Civil War,” Plensa recalls. and material of the metallic curtains that served as access to the most private moments of sexual ardor, who was born in Figueres, Catalonia, “is part of my “My father was always dreaming when he was young a barrier to protect food from flies. The curtains “ . . . passion, and love. In a 2016 exhibition at the Max Ernst family.” Though the Surrealist artist’s work is more to play the piano and my mother wanted to be an made beautiful music when hitting together. The Museum in Brühl, Germany, Plensa installed these of a touchstone from Plensa’s family life than a direct opera singer. They met at music school when they curtain that I wanted to produce in my work was with cascading ribbons of iron letters in three areas of the stylistic influence. Plensa may instead share Surrealist were fourteen.” Their goal was to become poetry—the idea that poetry can protect us from the galleries. Viewers had to pass through the hanging affinities with Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893–1983), who was professional musicians, but the political climate made flies of life.”18 The physical and emotional impression strips of language to reach the sculptures in the rooms born near Barcelona and also attended La Llotja this impossible. Nonetheless, the artist has vivid that those curtains left on him may be best perceived beyond. Song of Songs, 2005 (fig. 30), served as School. Miró left Spain in 1936, staying mainly in memories of his earliest years, particularly tucking in a series of filigreed curtains of interwoven iron protector and enabler, as the curtains introduced France, and returned in 1941 after the war. His Black beneath the family piano when he was four or five and letters that Plensa initiated in 2003 with his work Silent Plensa’s sculptural objects in the remainder of the and Red series—eight etchings from 1938 that “hiding inside” it when his father played. “It was an Rain (fig. 29). This series of works demonstrates how exhibition. Plensa’s works involved sourced texts are summon his fanciful forms, but feature a blackened iconic place. It wasn’t just an instrument. It was a room. a curtain can serve as an illogical boundary while often transcribed into English. He has utilized sun and wrenching figures—has been interpreted as At the right side of the piano, there was room for my simultaneously allowing access. graphemes from as many as ten other languages. his reaction to the Spanish Civil War.17 This series was body . . . I am giving more and more importance to So central is this image in the artist’s memory—a He himself speaks five languages: Catalan, English, done soon after his inclusion in the Museum of that moment now.” The piano was a sculptural, even workaday solution to repelling insects enduring also as French, Italian, and Spanish. Modern Art’s seminal exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada, architectural, form—one that resounds in the artist’s a metaphor for both secrecy and exposure and The artist’s childhood home was filled with access and Surrealism (1936–1937), and just before his first works of the mid-1990s, in their isolated environments, protection from or mediation of life’s hardships—that, in to literature and poetry, books purchased and major retrospective at the museum in 1941. and in his works of the late-1990s, especially Plensa’s 2004, he employed it in another installation of hanging collected by Plensa’s father, Pere Plensa. “My father Against the backdrop of the postwar years and “cells” which are room-size, enterable, transparent letters, this time featuring the complete thirty-article was a very big reader. It was a way to disappear. I grew within the constraints of Franco’s rule, Plensa’s parents spaces made of polyester resin. text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the up surrounded by text in some ways. Every Sunday document adopted in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II. Enveloping an entire room, viewers walk through the installation, as if they are physically implicated and bound to the strung letters of the Declaration, which opens: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world . . . ”19 The work is titled Glückauf?, 2004 (fig. 132), after a German greeting that miners commonly used in their work to wish good luck and safety on descending into and ascending from the treacherous depths of a mine. Plensa was moved by the expression’s affinity with the Declaration, which similarly brought people out of darkness and into the light. In 2005, Plensa continued using drapery as a vehicle for culling significant disquisitions, this time

31. Gos, 1985, iron, 100 x 55 x 90 cm 32. Cap de Cavall, 1984, bronze, 47 x 76 x 26 cm a reference to a lyrical poetic dialogue from the Old 33. La Soledad, 1985, iron, 350 x 150 x 115 cm

50 51 A city is a living body, a geography Plensa recalls that the problem for his parents was through 1979, he studied at the Sant Jordi School in transformation, a pile of particular that the postwar era had no future and that they “could of Fine Arts, also in Barcelona.22 His time there was reference points, unique in each case. not pass the frustrations onto their children.” The artist “a disaster,” he recalls, because he was in complete There are no two identical cities; described how he and his peers “were very motivated disagreement with his professors, perhaps due to however, a common denominator makes to try to transform society in our country when [we their materials or methods, although Plensa did not them familiar and recognizable: were] sixteen or seventeen. My parents were expand on this thought. Today, Plensa makes anonymity.20 completely apart from that. It was our turn.” In Homage sculpture and drawings, prints and editions, public to Catalonia, Orwell wrote similarly of young Catalans art, and opera stage design. While literary works that express feelings and ideas decades earlier who wanted to effect change and Plensa’s first trip outside Spain was to São Paulo furnish visual and intellectual placemakers for Plensa, chose to fight during the Spanish Civil War: “The and Rio de Janeiro when he was twenty years old, even today when he travels he visits outdoor public recruits were mostly boys of sixteen or seventeen from and five years later, he traveled to the United States markets and regards them as physical monuments. the back streets of Barcelona, full of revolutionary ardor and New York. In Brazil, he became interested This personal pilgrimage and corporeal reckoning but completely ignorant of the meaning of war. It was in macumba, the Afro-Brazilian religion or sect that grounds the artist. It appeals to his senses of sight impossible even to get them to stand in line.”21 Plensa commingles various traditions; it integrates the and smell, which inherently help to guide one’s notes that in this period, in contrast to much of the sacred practices of African slaves who had been understanding of a new environment and the people complicated national and international politics of today, displaced to Brazil in the sixteenth century with who inhabit it. These people have also become the there was “ . . . a clear enemy to fight, to battle.” European-origin Roman Catholicism. Plensa’s subjects of Plensa’s sculpture. They are girls and young Between 1969 and 1974, Plensa attended the experiences in the favelas of Brazil with people who women from many countries who are on the cusp of Llotja School of Art and Design. And from 1977 practiced macumba rituals and ceremonies bore on womanhood. There is a tenderness and respect of his subject in Plensa’s treatment of young women whose

34. Etwas von Mir, 1985, iron and copper, 280 x 82 x 82 cm features aren’t yet mature. The artist captures the facial landscape of each subject. He photographs them and uses this as a starting point for the work. Plensa’s morning, I went to the market for secondhand books far-reaching search for “faces from different origins in Barcelona and discovered art there on the covers and cultures” is in keeping with his use of alphabets of the art books. There wasn’t traditional art in my from many languages in his sculpture. He first decided home at all. The main influence for me was poetry to make these portraits when he finished The Crown rather than visual arts.” Plensa bases his sculpture Fountain in 2004. The outreach into Chicago on individual letters, characters, and poetic texts, neighborhoods for this work, in order to capture drawn from the works of Emily Dickinson, Johann portraits of one thousand residents, set an example for Wolfgang von Goethe, Dashell Hammett, William his later work. Plensa explained: “In everyday life, who Shakespeare, José Ángel Valente, and William Carlos is representing those people? I like to think that my Williams, among others. Their physical, literal work is about them in a very classic way.” In a sense, language has found a place in Plensa’s work. Plensa’s Plensa aggrandizes the street, the locals, and the own poems, written in Spanish, French, and English, neighborhood—all in service of the beauty of those serve as snapshots of places or images that linger who might be overlooked. This is another visual in the artist’s mind, as with this excerpt from the 1994 holdover from his childhood and a vibrant link to his

poem “Tenerife”: parent’s generation. 35. La Moule, 1999, bronze, 13.5 x 9.5 x 5.7 cm 36. Self-Portrait, 2002, bronze, 6 x 7 x 13 cm

52 53 in Paris and Barcelona in 1946 by Marguerite and an exaggerated back posture, and lunges forward. Aimé Maeght had for years shown a roster of Plensa’s iron sculpture has a nimbleness of movement international artists who defined vanguard twentieth- that recalls a work in clay. Just as Gos straddles the century painting and sculpture, including Georges line between human and animal, another work in the Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Maeght show, Cap de Cavall (meaning “horse’s head” Giacometti, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, in Catalan), 1984 (fig. 32), is a study in contradiction. and Antoni Tàpies. Jaume Plensa, Escultures was an The horse’s head—approximating the true dimensions important early exhibition for him, featuring a display of a live horse—is skeletal, its triangular teeth adhere of iron or copper sculptures of abstracted and to a bit, its eyes are but empty sockets, and its jawline fragmented human and animal forms, such as a horse a Constructivist essay. head, a dog’s haunch, an outsize figure, new work that Plensa’s figures in the Maeght exhibition were the exhibition catalogue claimed was “ . . . in fact a disquieting. La Soledad, 1985 (fig. 33), an almost phenomenon of vast proportions, heralding the 12-foot-tall figure, has a burnished patina that is at advent of a new humanism that had been impending once painterly and decomposing. It is made of forged for some time . . . ”23 This body of work was tortured, scrap iron and reeks of decay. Plensa’s predilection searching, haunted, surreal. It anticipated Plensa’s toward a surreal vocabulary is evident in this sculpture later sculpture that pull common objects out of their that is part human and part insect. Bulbous breasts usual context to concentrate on an unexpected, double as a pair of peering eyes. A sinuous rounded unanticipated, sometimes dark presence. “I was back complements a pair of arms that rest below the forging in copper, mainly, and trying to discover the waist. And a series of channels emerge from a neck [human] body, but in a relationship to the body of that supports an open, corrupted sphere that crowns animals, as well,” Plensa says. “Where was the border the work. Encased in its armor, it is reminiscent of a 37. Islas, 1995, painted aluminum, methacrylate, vinyl, stainless steel, and neon, 73 lightboxes of variable dimensions. Rambla de Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain between an animal and a person?”24 human form, but with no legs to support movement. The Maeght exhibition focused on Plensa’s Plensa brings this figure to a point at its base, discovery of cast iron as a singular medium. “It was attached to a low footing. his understanding of different cultural and religious work internationally. Plensa is upbraided at talk about a material to which I returned,” Plensa says. “I was Another figure in the Maeght exhibition was observances, including how devotion is practiced his work representing Spanish culture. Just as his trying, dreaming about the origin of the world and Etwas von Mir, 1985 (fig. 34), a 9-foot-tall apocalyptic in extreme poverty. In these surroundings, he learned parents never subscribed to that identity, he has trying to fill a hole with metal. I was dreaming about sculpture of a frightening visage encased in a the importance of the spiritual and its connection to developed “ . . . a single life, something apart . . . the formation of mountains.” In the Maeght show, the copper-and-iron shroud. Plensa’s welding marks are the physical. “The physical part of the body,” he has When I say I am going back to Barcelona, I am going artist navigated between animals with corporeal traits arrayed across the surface of the work like little said, is his way of expressing “the idea of the spirit.” back to my studio . . . I feel comfortable in the and humans with brute character. About this transition assaults on the figure, which cries to emerge from He has also said that ancient Iberian sculpture holds studio.” he commented that “an animal is not an animal inside a metal cocoon. Like La Soledad that is also great interest. anymore, it is a human being.” anchored to a footing, this work terminates curiously Although he is a Barcelonan artist, Plensa feels Galeria Maeght One of the exhibited works is a life-size on an inverted bowl—an abraded, rusted iron object that he has never been accepted in his country as In 1986, when he was thirty-one years old, Plensa’s rendering of a mongrel. Titled Gos (meaning “dog” that is an unlikely pedestal and a source of cessation. a leading citizen. He is not a regionalist linked to sculpture was shown at Galeria Maeght in Barcelona. in Catalan), 1985 (fig. 31), the headless creature an iron In these works from the Maeght exhibition, Catalonia or even necessarily to Spain. Rather, his His work demonstrated a range of influences and figure that is bound to the ground plane, but appears Plensa’s beings have no optimism, no beauty. They are stature as a global citizen and artist relates better to spoke of a young artist’s striving to realize an to be in motion, retains significant human features. ancient and skeletal; prehistoric and corpse-like; his worldview and the location and exhibition of his independent visual language. The gallery, established The form has rippling musculature across the forelegs, futuristic and disquieting. Plensa’s production in this

54 55 surrounding the form, the letters leaning up against and of experimentation. The question mark refers to the shell. The bivalve’s growth rings are subtly rendered concerns about life that guide the artist in his work. in pattern on the exterior of the shell, while the letters Plensa explored the self-portrait type further in of Plensa’s name tenuously connected to the surface. a non-figurative manner in Islas, 1995 (fig. 37), Self-Portrait has only one appendage to the mussel: an outdoor project realized in Tenerife, the largest a single question mark placed atop the shell’s mantle. of the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa. The ambiguous punctuation, suggesting a cliffhanger A companion piece, Islands II (fig. 80), was first or a conundrum, also doubles as a hook, a curved installed at Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 1996; piece of metal that suspends and entices. “I was it then traveled to the Galerie du Jeu de Paume in using the concept of a question,” Plensa explains. Paris and the Malmö Konsthall in Sweden; and it was “Sculpture is the best way to pose a question. If you permanently installed at the Kunsthalle Mannheim have the capacity to have one, two, or three questions in Germany in 1997. Both works—Islas and Islands II— in your life, that is a lot. The question mark is a strong memorialize the surnames of seventy-three artists, engine that pushes you to reach new ideas, new including that of Broodthaers, Calder, da Vinci, possibilities.” It is equally an attribute of searching Duchamp, Gris, Kahlo, Lissitzky, Masaccio, Malevich,

38. Green Self-Portrait, 2007, bronze, 110 x 52 x 62 cm 39. Self-Portrait as D. Hammett IV, 2014, stainless steel, 118 x 98 x 98 cm

period adopts existential crises as a central tenet. His a group of self-portraits, starting in the early 1990s, works of the 1980s link most closely to the 1980s in which the human figure predominates. European and American Neo-Expressionist movement in painting. It was a turn away from the asceticism Self-Portraits of Minimalism; artists revived figuration, gesture, Since 1993, Plensa has created a multitude of self- and painterliness from the German Expressionism portraits, each varying in scale, material, and form. of the 1920s and 1930s and American Abstract What unifies his self-portraits, though, is that they are Expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s. Georg Baselitz, produced in the service of texts—such as letters and Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Julian the poetry of his childhood. They are made not only Schnabel were among the artists who disavowed with these texts in mind, but with these texts—the spare geometry in favor of coarse inquiries that written word—as the foundation of this body of work. imbued the figure with narrative content, whether Plensa’s self-portraits consistently reflect his enduring historical or mythical. Plensa also eschewed the love of the written word. remnants of the Minimalist avant-garde in the early Two bronze pieces, La Moule (“mussel” in 1980s. His work, he recalls, was “more expressionist French) 1999 (fig. 35), and Self-Portrait, 2002 (fig. 36), in some ways.” And the works that once straddled represent mussel shells cracked open to reveal dark

animal and human lives would eventually evolve into interiors. In La Moule, Plensa’s surname is spelled out, 40. Te Heart of Trees, 2007. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015

56 57 The nineteenth-century French Romantic composer . . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot Hector Berlioz appears in the white marble divide it by seasons. We can only records its Self-Portrait as H.B II, 2006. (Plensa designed sets moods, and chronicle their return. With us time and costumes for Berlioz’s vocal work The Damnation itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to of Faust at the 1999 Salzburg Festival.) The twentieth- circle round one centre of pain. The paralysing century Bulgarian-born German-language novelist immobility of a life every circumstance of which is and playwright Elias Canetti, whom Plensa considered regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that a close friend, appears in several works including we eat and drink and lie down and pray, or kneel the white cast-marble Self-Portrait as E.C I and the at least for prayer, according to the inflexible laws aluminum Self-Portrait as E.C III, both made in 2006. of an iron formula: this immobile quality, that In fact, the Canetti figures bear the semblance of the makes each dreadful day in the very minutest artist whose body and face were cast for these detail like its brother . . . 27 sculptures. Writer Dashiell Hammett, whom Plensa calls “very influential,” appears in a stainless steel If De Profundis served to instigate an image type open grid of letters—Self-Portrait as D. Hammett IV, for Plensa, it is one that emanates solitary melancholy, 2014 (fig. 39). The respective figures in these self- longing, and introspection. His 2007 bronze Green portraits do not physically resemble Berlioz or Canetti Self-Portrait (fig. 38) is of the kneeling variety, the 41. Paris I, II, III, 1989, iron, 250 x 250 x 250 cm each 42. Self-Portrait, 2013. Installation view of Human Landscape, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA, 2016 or Hammett—all figures with whom Plensa identifies. figure with eyes closed as if in prayer. Across this Through self-portraiture, Plensa infiltrates the writers man’s entire body—save for his face—the daily needs whom he reveres, but each is also a blank Everyman, for sustenance are listed: fruit, eggs, noodles, turnips, Picabia, Turner, van Gogh, Vermeer, and Warhol. understood, and not be believ’d.”25 Perhaps Plensa aggrandized through a blanket of letters, specifying There is no stylistic consistency to be found in the equates these artists and himself as the ultimate truth poetry or music. group of artists, and any historical linkage drawn tellers. The impetus for Plensa may have been Plensa said recently that he “decided to do the might only relate to a bygone canon of artists who to place his own work in the pantheon of art history. self-portrait through the others,” meaning those who have inspired one another. Rather, these two But there is no “Plensa” listed in either piece. It is an are seminal to his thinking and practice. Self-Portrait sculptures, with their seventy-three names, were art historical mashup with Plensa as the aggregator. as O.W, 2005, is a life-size white cast-marble sculpture. produced as paeans to those who have moved Plensa In 2005, Plensa began a group of self-portraits The work was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, with their groundbreaking work. In Islas, the names of seated figures whose arms wrap around their legs, a 50,000-word letter written from Reading Gaol, hang from a tree, a sure-fire pun on the tree of knees tucked tightly to their chests. Plensa regularly in Berkshire, England, where Wilde was imprisoned knowledge. Islands II displays the names like a ticker returns to this pyramidal human figure; it has become for two years for “indecency.”26 In the letter, dated tape running above the viewer’s head. But the tribute a signature pose. Other self-portraits are kneeling 1897, Wilde wrote of his spiritual evolution in prison to the seventy-three artists is expressed through yet figures with arms at their sides, resting on their thighs. and his complicated affair with his lover, Lord Alfred another layer: the seventy-third proverb of English Plensa deliberately uses these two postures in his Douglas, to whom the letter was addressed. Perhaps poet William Blake’s late eighteenth-century “Proverbs work: crouching and kneeling. “Crouching is the the solitariness of Plensa’s figure stands for Wilde’s of Hell.” According to Plensa: “The seventy-three closest to when we are inside our mother. You isolation, deprivation, and physical and psychological names of artists, I call that a self-portrait. You can become your shelter . . . It is an interesting position to captivity in prison, where the playwright, novelist, and understand me better as I tried to do the portrait relax, but also to be very concentrated on yourself.” poet endured his sentence. De Profundis begins with through these artists.” Blake’s final proverb in this The artist has regularly put himself in the guise an existential description of suffering and yearning, group states: “Truth can never be told so as to be of other creative individuals in his self-portraits. the bodily struggle of containment: 43. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Galleria Gentilli, Florence, Italy, 1994

58 59 larger seas and oceans. In Self-Portrait with Rivers II, male figure hugging its knees, eyes closed as if 2006, a white cast-marble piece that is just over in prayer or meditation. life-size, the artist lists: the Gambia River in West In 2016, with the construct of the self-portrait still Africa; the Jura in Lithuania; the Tagus shared by pervading his sculpture, Plensa created a freestanding Portugal and Spain; and the Zambezi in East Africa, stainless-steel sphere that he simply called Self-Portrait which flows into the Indian Ocean. The river is a force (fig. 42). (The sphere has recurred several times in his in nature that sculpts the landscape, carving out new sculpture, used initially in Paris I, II, III from 1989 terrain; it provides a life force to people and it [fig. 41], a three-part iron piece comprised of eight- symbolizes the romance of adventure and exploration foot-high incised forms. And Plensa’s first self-portrait that draws Plensa. Because it is essential to life, water in this form was in 2013.) The sphere—or globe—is has long preoccupied the artist. An untitled 1991 made up of a complex web of letters from nine poem written in Los Angeles and Tokyo emphasizes different alphabets: Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, dependence on the element for intellectual, physical, Hebrew, Hindi, Latin, Japanese, and Tamil. Inside this and spiritual sustenance: globe is a human figure whose base, Plensa says, “becomes the sphere that encloses and protects it . . . All is water. It is the most perfect geometrical shape. It is also a A fluid that inundates. metaphorical shape, the figure is closing in on itself.” An eruption of liquid light that transforms the corner into Eternity. Christopher Street, Waldemarstrasse, Beaumarchais,

44. Betty / Delphine / Fabienne, 1994, polyester resin and iron, 222 x 59 x 61 cm each Jezuseiklaam, Multindus… The shaken continents become moist as breasts. salt, and coffee are all catalogued. These foods Each sculpture bears the name of acclaimed Pacific Coast, Uhlandstrasse, Borgo Sta. Croce, provide corporeal nourishment to the lone, composers from across the history of Western Marianenplatz, contemplative being. With The Heart of Trees (fig. 40), music: Béla Bartók, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Multindus… a bronze sculpture from 2007, Plensa explodes the Berlioz, Benjamin Britten, Joseph Haydn, Leoš Freedom is a tattoo; a river that cuts like a blade. premise that the self-portrait serves to represent one Janácˇek, Jacques Offenbach, Antonio Salieri, Arnold Tervuren, Maine Street, Place de la Daurade, individual. In this outdoor work, seven identical seated Schoenberg, Kurt Weill, and others. Again, this Adalbertstrasse, figures, cast from the artist’s body, are installed on allegiance to other artists supports Plensa’s stance that Multindus… a low grassy knoll, each embracing one of seven live a self-portrait is actually of anyone, of everyone; All is water. trees. It is a fulfillment of Plensa’s investigation in this work, the cliché of the insular artist projects into Glasses filled with light, damp sculptures. of self-portraiture because of the multiplicity of the a multiplicity of figures and landscapes. Cigarettes floating like red islands in my mouth.28 objects. Each time the piece is installed, indigenous Plensa has also named self-portraits for rivers— trees are inserted into the work to resonate with bodies of water that have long intrigued him because The white, almost ghostly form of the figure in 45. Bedroom, 1995, polyester resin, iron, synthetic leather, and light, the specific site of installation. of their initial local range and eventual reach into Self-Portrait with Rivers II wraps into itself, an isolated 198 x 87 x 217 cm. Collection Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France

60 61 Self-Portrait, installed outdoors for a 2016 exhibition of sculptures done in polyester resin and either iron of the Spanish Civil War and rebuilt following. For both at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, is mostly or glass. Some of these are floor pieces that resemble a artists, there is mystery conjured by the sculpture transparent; one can see through from one side of the discovery from a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean: and personal reckoning. “I decided to cast in resin to curvilinear wall of interlocking letters to the other. distressed iron with a central, cloudy transparent eye. keep the transparency and fragility. That something However, the sculpture also contains an internal form But the strength in this series is those works that could break as a memory in a snap,” Plensa recalled that harks back to Plensa’s earlier examples of summon transparency and fragility and link explicitly to when describing these works. transparency and translucency. The secret interior— the artist’s past. Plensa’s Cloudy Box pieces make for Plensa’s work confounds with one extended box: what is just visible, just graspable—has also guided his an intriguing comparison with the post-Minimalist work its surface conjures an antique mirror with flaking work for many years. by Eva Hesse (1936–1970) which Plensa may or may corners and a built-in history of self-examination. Atop not have known in the 1980s. Hesse’s translucent latex, that box rests a simple side table, made of the same Transparency and Translucency polyester resin, and fiberglass creations challenged the material, with decorative legs and a fanciful drawer By the 1990s, recognizing the opaque quality that geometric rigidity and asceticism of Minimalism. While with a pull. At just over 3 feet high, Cloudy Box VIII, guided his work, Plensa sought a change of materials, her process exposed and ritualized the messiness 1994, places that dresser, a symbol of home in the methods, and visual practice. “I was exhausted with and brittleness of materials, Plensa’s sculptures are artist’s memory, on an elevated platform. The sculpture opaque things,” he explains. “I wanted transparency.” redolent of narrative with a looming, haunted history. hangs above eye level, so it is seen at a distance—a Some of his new work would be transparent, granting Both artists expose memory in their work. And it is cloudy recollection in the mind’s eye. Cloudy Box IX, the viewer complete access. Other objects were likely that Hesse and Plensa worked, through their art, 1994, follows a similar format, but here the box has translucent, hinting at lucidity, but stopping just short to complete what was incomplete in their a firmly shut cabinet door, disabling access, storage, by means of a metaphoric gossamer veil. In the early recollections. Hesse’s family fled Nazi Germany in the or recollection. Cloudy Box VIII is also a transparent 1990s, Plensa began the series Cloudy Box, a group late 1930s; Plensa’s family endured the political turmoil container that juts out from the wall. Plensa has said, however, that this body of work is most accurately influenced by medieval altar tombs stacked on the walls of cathedrals or family chapels rather than a reaction to American Minimalist art.29 48. Tel Aviv Man V, 2004. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Centro de Art Contemporaneo de Málaga, Málaga, Spain, 2005 Plensa expanded this body of work to a life-size, translucent container—or confessional—for the viewer to enter with Cloudy Box X, 1994. Cloudy Box X is a 6.5-foot-tall locker, framed with iron and featuring daughter of the elderly shopkeeper in Honoré de a utilitarian, floor-length iron door with a lever handle. Balzac’s 1835 novel Le Père Goriot. She ignores her The sculpture straddles the line between providing father on his deathbed and avoids his funeral, sending the viewer with a place of sanctuary and reprieve an empty coach as her desolate surrogate. Plensa’s and a constricting coffin. In Cloudy Box XI, 1994, elongated sculpture, over 7 feet tall, evokes the casket the doorway becomes a threshold to cross; it is an of Goriot’s death, the shatterable elegance of social even less welcoming receptacle, which, if entered, aspiration, the hazy attainment of connection. encases the viewer in a crystalline casket. Plensa then These geometric boxes of longing and complexity merges the staid box form with the fanciful furniture would continue to transform across Plensa’s work in two different works from 1994: Delphine and in two related but opposing groups of sculptures from Fabienne (fig. 44). On the side of each of these, letters the mid- and late-1990s. One group, he informally calls

46. Sea, 1997, polyester resin, 42 x 24 x 37 cm 47. Blood I, 1997, polyester resin, 27 x 38 x 68 cm spell out the name of the subject. Delphine was the “cells,” and the other is characterized by varying

62 63 a classic woven footstool. Fire, 1997, places the figure facing in to the chair back, her arms extended and grasping. Titling these works with the names of body fluids and elements was a regular ordering system for Plensa: fire, wind, saliva, blood, marrow, tears, and semen have all found a thematic place in his work. He also titled works related to the dolls with words for different human emotions, such as Desire, Wrath, and Hate—all from 1997. These resin sculptures are of open-armed, facedown figures, each placed above a plaque printed with the work’s respective title. By 2005, while continuing this visual language, the artist had abandoned the specificity of the doll metaphor as analogous to home and memory. He instead created life-sized figures pushing out from the wall, mysteriously lit from within. One such installation, See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, 2010, includes outsized figures that silently loom above the viewer. While the general structure and pellucidity of the cells would culminate in Plensa’s famed The Crown 49. Te Soul of Words I, II, 2014. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015 50. We, 2009. Installation view of Vancouver Biennale, 2009–2011, Vancouver, Canada Fountain, the female dolls and figures foreshadowed the female portraits that he continues to make today. transparent figures that project out from and a sense of being surveilled. Neither room is opaque, “For The Crown Fountain, I transferred my cells into perpendicular to the plane of the wall. “The main neither fully contained nor closed in, neither buildings with big towers. I decided to fill it with one Plensa’s intention—with works such as these—to intention at that time” with the cells, he says, “was to unbearable, but these works sit on the edge of thousand faces of people living in Chicago. When transform letters from the pages of books into create cells for one individual. Spaces you could fill anguish. Of course, Oscar Wilde’s desolation in prison I finished The Crown Fountain, I continued to make three-dimensional appraisals of form and physicality. with yourself.” He was interested in the “relationship was not lost on Plensa when he made these works. portraits of young women. And then I moved to make The subject of transparency has perplexed and with the scale of the human body,” by the absence When Plensa introduced the other group—the the human shape with letters.” It is the human allured Plensa for decades. “I had been working in cast rather than the presence of the figure.” Bedroom, 1995 transparent, doll-size, and doll-shape figures shape—whether transparent heads or full figures— iron for many years,” he recalls. “One day I was in the (fig. 45), is a narrow bunker with a shelf for a bed that protruding headfirst from the wall alongside these made of metal letters woven together into a linguistic foundry and the metal was coming out from the oven could accommodate one person. Although the entry geometric compositions of boxes—he immediately mesh, for which Plensa is perhaps best known today; it in a liquid. Suddenly, I realized that steel or iron is just has no door to seal it off, the space is still ominous, akin established a curious relationship with the viewer. also allies him with the concept and practice of beauty. light.” That quest for transparency has guided him to a prison cell rather than a bedroom where lust, love, A common plaything looms portentously, juxtaposed Viewers can access these works because of their through several different phases: it crept into the sleep, and regeneration typically occur. Similarly, Living with a doll-size piece of furniture. “This was a strange recognizable subject matter, the technical mastery geometric form of his boxes and the figuration of the Room, 1995, is a claustrophobic space of containment. moment,” Plensa says about the reason for conceiving of the materials, and Plensa’s ability to endow the dolls. But those works were expectedly transparent The implied contradiction here is in Plensa’s selection these objects. “I decided to cast all of these objects figure with a transcendent spiritual presence. Tel Aviv because polyester resin has the quality of endowing of materials: each room seems “built” with large from my past. The dolls are the legacy of my mother. Man I, 2003, was the first work in an extensive series sculpture with light. Plensa’s real predicament then translucent bricks, neatly stacked, just susceptible That is the only thing I kept [of hers].” In Saliva II, 1997, of figurative fragments formed in skins of iron or steel involved how to bring that light and its related enough for light to enter, yet just eerie enough to invite made of polyester resin, a female figurine stands atop letters, and meant to hang from the ceiling. It was openness to metal. He did so by adapting an open-

64 65 format is nimble in endowing a classical calm and Nosotros, translates from Spanish to English as us, we, ageless beauty and, coincidentally, in capturing a or ourselves. The white-painted stainless-steel moment in the contemporary sitter’s life. The clarity sculpture stands more than 16 feet high. When inside, and commonality of a face, neck, eyes, and ears that viewers can join a tight-knit group of us, we, or are open and exposed, full of concepts and formed ourselves—separated from, but also perhaps serving of emptiness, are what propel the artist. Selecting as a microcosm of, a larger them. Plensa made smaller everyday people to be aggrandized on The Crown variations of this piece, such as the study We, 2009, Fountain brought Plensa to the selection of young which measures about 18 inches high. women as his main subject in portraiture today. The portrait head as a subject—an individual Whenever he is in Rome or Salzburg, for instance, whose reach is collective and a window into diverse and looks at the fountains or other outdoor Baroque communities—has proved a flexible format for Plensa. sculpture, he is aware that “they are always of He has created portraits in alabaster, stainless steel, important people or divinities, surrounded by iron, marble, bronze, and basalt. In using individuals architecture. I always ask myself, ‘Where are the real who aren’t famous or recognizable as portrait subjects, people?’ The people are the soul of the city, the he has bestowed great power, and even beauty, on anonymous people who appear and disappear. No regular people. Plensa brings great contemporaneity one is ever doing a homage to them.” Plensa regularly to his work. Some art historians have allied his titles his sculpture with the names of his models, figurative sculpture with the classical works, and there however their particular identity is less important than is indeed a sense of timelessness in the air of his their accessibility as a unique individual. Irma’s White subjects. Yet they are also of this moment—because Head, 2008, measuring almost 8 feet high, is made of of their visages, their vitality, their carriage. He relies white baked enamel over stainless steel. Plensa’s web on the new in computer programming and in of letters is a malleable material wherein the figure photographic reproduction to realize his works, first

51. Lilliput VIII / V / VI, 2012. Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany, 2016 emerges from text. Works such as L’Âme des Mots I, in the form of a computer diagram, and then 2009, expand on the complexity of the artist’s materials in a three-dimensional small-scale model; the final through a great variety of letter forms, but this sculptures are made in his Barcelona studio or in weave constellation of letters or other patterns into his stainless-steel sculpture in the hand of benediction sculpture, of a figure seated atop marble rocks, recalls nearby foundries. “You should use the tools of your metal figures. “I was more interested in the interior pose was also installed in the Venetian church. Both a fragment of ancient statuary because the face time,” he affirms. Plensa has remained loyal to of the body, the emptiness,” he says. “Every work is a works were placed in the nave of this deeply spiritual and part of the chest are “lost.” The openwork fades portraiture and to developing that subject however container. I like to explain that the beginning [of this and historical setting, so that visitors could see into an abyss of contemplation. he can. “The portrait is a strange mix because I am phase in my work] was something physical and then it through the works to the church’s interior and to the The portrait heads, stemming from Plensa’s The trying to merge photography and sculpture,” moved to something conceptual. With the mesh heads canal outside. In this setting, the artist anticipated the Crown Fountain, evolved over time back into outdoor he acknowledges. “Photography is trying to capture that you can see through, the change is not with viewer’s intention of entering a historic religious public sculpture; with monumental scale and public an instant. Sculpture is always thinking about eternity. materials, but with the aptitude of them.” His 2015 sanctuary by exposing his figure’s interiority while siting, the human body—either sitting or kneeling— This mix of the everyday and the eternal is part installation of the monumental wire-mesh portrait Mist, simultaneously disclosing all passers-by. It is a has become a shelter for people to walk into, to view of the portrait that breaks the tension.” 2014 (figs. 6, 145), in Andrea Palladio’s sixteenth- culmination of transparency with a fully open, the world from the perspective of an insider, the Plensa has maneuvered scale in the figurative century Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore during the physically consuming visual language. sculpture encasing them as individuals. But viewers portraits, ranging from the intimate to the human to 2015 Venice Biennale realized this aspiration. Together, Plensa’s open-framework heads are larger than can also circumnavigate the object and peer into the monumental. And the figures are remarkably 2014 (figs. 7, 144), an almost 14-foot-high floating human scale and disappear in a swarm of netting. This a hollow inner sanctum. One such work from 2009, adaptable at accommodating these varied

66 67 dimensions. Recent work then plays simultaneously 2010, The Art Newspaper called him “the Catalan fragmentation, disintegration, and distemper are in. with scale and disintegration. His Lilliput (fig. 51) series practitioner who has created major public sculptures Bodies lead us to urgent questions, to answers, to the of 2012 refers to the society of 6-inch-tall men in for cities such as Nice and Chicago . . . ”31 That same political and social, and to a new idea of beauty. Jonathan Swift’s 1726 Gulliver’s Travels. The diminutive year, Sculpture magazine noted that “ . . . Plensa has When Plensa is asked about sources of inspiration men were as arrogant and puffed up as their giant been making remarkable works in the public realm.”32 for his sculpture, he typically cites poetry rather than counterparts in Swift’s telling. Scale did not matter, And The Wall Street Journal stated in 2011 that “his the work of other artists. But his most influential psychological size did. Plensa’s Lilliput I through most famous work is perhaps The Crown Fountain source currently may be the people whom he meets Lilliput X are hanging sculptures, like mobiles. Within in Chicago’s Millennium Park, which opened in in his neighborhood Sant Feliu de Llobregat, an this suspended format, the figures weep letters from 2004.”33 By his example, though, he has elevated the industrial town near Barcelona, and on his trips their eyes; letters slide off of their sides and backs. type of work and the type of artist who is willing to around the world. Plensa, however, is clear that he is Lilliput I starts with a full figure from the waist up; only create outdoors. Critical attention may thus be paid to not a hero, consumed socially or politically by basing its knees have begun to dissolve into space. By Lilliput the seriousness of Plensa’s practice. Artists who work monumental sculpture on, for example, immigrants to X, though, all that remains is a head and neck. Over outdoors—beyond the established confines of the Spain. “As a man, I am completely about that,” he time, as the series progresses, Lilliput decays. Plensa museum or gallery, often disassociated from initiated explained. “But my creation is trying to introduce has said that his friend, the artist Sir Anthony Caro viewers in a physical setting where sculpture is something else inside.” Plensa endows those figures (British, 1924–2013), always told him: “Jaume, there are vulnerable to a range of interpretations—have only with poetry in a range of materials—through the three main things in a sculpture: scale, scale, and scale.” recently achieved serious review of their public work. physicality of letters, through the grace of a woman’s And now, with some of the most distinguished profile that has a topographical linearity. Critical Response and Context contemporary artists venturing into public space, the John Berger, the public intellectual and art critic, Plensa’s works are found in major national and field is maturing with deliberate placement of works wrote a chapter on Plensa in his passionate volume, international public collections. His projects and by artists who want their work to be completely Portraits: John Berger on Artists. The book included reputation have vast reach. Leading museums and accessible. Thirty-five years ago, the artist Robert sections on seventy-four artists—from cave painters to cultural institutions have organized solo exhibitions Morris asked: “If there is such a thing as public art, Mantegna, from Michelangelo to Goya, from and renowned scholars, art historians, and curators what then is private art?”34 Plensa may be best known Rembrandt to Kahlo. Berger did not offer a formal 52. Humming, 2011, marble and lead, 254 x 94 x 113 cm. Collection deCordova Sculpture Park have written extensively on his work over the decades. as a public artist who has advocated for outdoor analysis in his Plensa write-up, nor did he group the and Museum, Lincoln, USA He has had solo exhibitions around the world. Yet sculpture—to much acclaim—but his studio practice artist’s works into categories that would succinctly Plensa’s sculpture has not received extensive critical is not a separate organism. The limitations here are explain decades of productivity. Instead, Berger led the largest quarry face would be too small to record attention either in legacy media art world only from those who draw a line between where a written walking tour of timelessness and the life of a one-year old child. publications—Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, a sculpture is sited and who is the viewer. Through his tombstones. Clearly thoughtful of Plensa’s use Then why the name and the two dates? Salt, rain, Flash Art, or Parkett—or from newer websites use of unknown sitters as portrait subjects, Plensa has of language in his sculpture, Berger looked to the lichen, and wind efface the deepest-cut letters within and publications—Artnet, Artsy, Blouin Artinfo, sought to harness a contemporary rendition of beauty memorials in a chapel cemetery on an island in the a century or two. The question might be asked in any or Hyperallergic. The Brooklyn Rail published derived from figures across the social system. Hebrides to ponder something deep within Plensa’s cemetery where names are inscribed. But on Gigha, a comprehensive interview with the artist in February It pervades all aspects of his sculpture. art. Berger contemplated the incised name and dates the answer is more evident. The inscriptions are not 2017 and Sculpture magazine has reviewed some When contemporary artists engage the figure in on the graves as markers of time: for the living . . . The inscriptions are a naming, of his exhibitions.30 their work, it is often towards securing a connection A name and the two dates, the last one precise and this naming is addressed to all the other dead The general omission of critical reviews of with the human condition. Figuration in contemporary to the very day. This is what is recorded. About what whom the mourned one has now joined.35 Plensa’s work may point to one key factor: reviewers sculpture is potent because of the divergent means happened between, apart from the bare fact Plensa’s framing of language marks time in the associate him with his enormous success in public art, that great artists bring to the human form. What is of survival, not a word is written. Even for the shortest life of the individual. “The portrait is something a field that has largely eluded critical dialogue. In clear is that idealization of the body is out while life no imaginable stone would be large enough; extraordinary,” Plensa has said. “I did a portrait of one

68 69 girl from the Dominican Republic in the same marble fragmentation and dissolution, common experience as the Prince of Salzburg. It created a strange and collective imagination. Plensa’s work may bypass commemoration of the anonymous. I am paying many trends of the contemporary art scene in favor homage to all of us, to society. The first time I read the of constant reckoning with the figure’s placement American Constitution, ‘We the People,’ I never forgot or displacement in culture and society. it. It is so ample and beautiful. My portraits have the same philosophy behind them.” He infuses portraiture Brooke Kamin Rapaport is Deputy Director and with a refreshed beauty, reliant on text and Martin Friedman Senior Curator at Madison Square Park contemplation, on eternity and evanescence, Conservancy in New York, USA.

1 Quoted in Alicia Chillida. Jaume Plensa: Chaos-Saliva. Madrid: Garden and Museum of Art and Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2015, Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, 2000, p. 219. p. 11. 2 Laila Pedro. “In Conversation: Jaume Plensa and Laila Pedro,” 8 Mark Scala. “Body Language,” in Jaume Plensa: Human Landscape. The Brooklyn Rail, February 1, 2017, www.brooklynail.org, accessed Nashville, Tennessee: Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum on July 5, 2017. of Art and Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2015, p. 28. 3 Barnett Newman. “The Sublime Is Now,” in Charles Harrison and 9 Jeremy Strick. Jaume Plensa at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. West Paul J. Wood (eds.), Art in Theory, 1900–2000; An Anthology of Bretton, England: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2011, p. 7. Changing Ideas. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing, 1992, p. 581. Essay 10 Johann Joachim Winckelmann. “Essay on the Beautiful in Art,” originally published in Tiger’s Eye, December 1948. in David Irwin (ed.), Winckelmann: Writings on Art. London: Phaidon 4 A compilation of essays on beauty was published in 2009. See Dave Press Limited, 1972, p. 89. Beech (ed.), Beauty: Documents of Contemporary Art. London and 11 Ibid., 94. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, 12 Adam Hochschild. “Process of Extermination,” review of The 2009. Moreover, a major museum exhibition traced beauty as a Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston,” The New York Times Book construct for artists. See Neal Benezra, Olga M. Viso. Regarding Review, May 11, 2012. www.nytimes.com, accessed July 28, 2017. 53. Laura, 2013 / Awilda, 2014, basalt, 215 x 71 x 70 cm / 201 x 75 x 70 cm. Collection Te Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, USA Beauty: A View of the Late Twentieth Century, exh. cat. Washington, 13 Irene Boada. “How Catalan Survived: Banning a Language May Be D.C.: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1999. an Effective Way of Preserving It,” The Atlantic, September 26, 2015. 5 Gormley recently told a reporter: “Beauty is not something that www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/catalan-spain- I strive for. Beauty is a by-product. I wouldn’t say that anything independene-vote/407446, accessed July 3, 2017. I make aspires to the condition of beauty. We’re less certain now than 14 George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia (1938; New York: Harcourt, Dreams. Espoo, Finland: Espoo Museum of Modern Art, 2012, p. 40. 13/suffering-is-one-very-long-monent, accessed July 28, we ever were, about what that word means. Which is maybe why it is Brace, 1952), accessed July 3, 2017. https://libcom.org/files/ 19 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris in 1948 2017. important.” See Hans-Maarten Post. “Truth Is More Important Than HomagetoCatalonia.pdf, accessed July 3, 2017. by the General Assembly of the United Nations, www.un.org/en/ 27 Oscar Wilde. De Profundis. Phoenix: Phoenix-Library.org, 2001, Beauty,” Utopia Parkway, October 12, 2009, https://utopiaparkway. 15 The Escola de la Llotja, or more formally Escola d’Arts I Oficis de universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html, accessed on July 9, www.dominiopublico.gov.br/download/texto/ph000457.pdf, wordpress.com/2009/10/12/truth-is-more-important-than-beauty- Barcelona, was founded in 1775 to train applied artists; it later added 2017. accessed on July 9, 2017. antony-gormley-the-utopia-parkway-files-part-2, accessed July 14, sculpture to the curriculum. 20 Jaume Plensa. “Tenerife,” 1994 in Alicia Chillida. Jaume Plensa: 28 Carsten Ahrens. Jaume Plensa. Madrid and Barcelona, Ediciones 2017. Kiki Smith’s 2006 exhibition, Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980 to 16 The author conducted two interviews with Jaume Plensa in Chaos-Saliva. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Poligrafa, 2003, p. 59. 2005 held at the Whitney Museum of American Art was described by preparation for this essay: one in New York on April 26, 2017 and one 2000, p. 233 (English translation), p. 126 (original Spanish text). 29 Plensa notes that the medieval gargoyle was also influential for the museum as having “extraordinary power and uncommon beauty.” in Barcelona on June 19, 2017. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations 21 George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia. New York: Harcourt, Brace, The Crown Fountain where human faces spew water. Earlier, Smith told Art 21:“It’s always about shifting the possibilities of are from these interviews. 1952, accessed July 3, 2017. https://libcom.org/files/ 30 Jaume Plensa and Laila Pedro. “Art: In Conversation,” The Brooklyn what can be beautiful. One’s self is always shifting in relationship to 17 Deborah Wye. Joan Miro, Black and Red Series: A New Acquisition HomagetoCatalonia.pdf Rail, February 1, 2017. http://brooklynrail.org/2017/02/art/JAUME- beauty, and you always have to be able to incorporate yourself or your in Context, exhibition booklet, The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, 22 The full name in Catalan is Reial Academia Catalana de Belles Arts PLENSEA-with-Laila-Pedro. Accessed on July 22, 2017. new self into life. Like, your skin starts hanging off your arms and stuff, https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_229_300087882. de Sant Jordi. 31 Gareth Harris. “Jaume Plensa: Alphabet of the Soul,” The Art and then you have to think, ‘Well, that’s really beautiful, too.’ It just pdf, accessed on July 24, 2017. In this publication, Wye writes that the 23 Gloria Moure. Jaume Plensa: Escultures. Barcelona, Galeria Maeght, Newspaper, May 2010, p. 76. isn’t beautiful in a way that I knew it was beautiful before.” See “Family series “can be seen as a quintessential manifestation of Surrealist art; 1986, n.p. 32 Jonathan Goodman. “New York: Jaume Plensa, Galerie Lelong,” History and the History of Objects, Art in the Twenty-first Century, Kiki a wrenching response to the social and political upheavals of the 24 The exhibition catalogue points out that just as Plensa was obtaining Sculpture, June 2010, p. 75. Smith,” Art 21, season 2, Stories episode, 2003. https://art21.org/read/ Spanish Civil War.” professional recognition in Barcelona, he moved to Berlin and worked 33 Emma Crichton-Miller. “Jaume Plensa Is Deep In Thought,” The kiki-smith-family-history-and-the-history-of-objects, accessed July 14, 18 Plensa recounted a similar story on the occasion of a 2012 exhibition there in 1983 and 1984. Wall Street Journal April 8, 2011, www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001420527 2017. in Finland: “As a child, I went with my mother to the shops and passed 25 William Blake. “Proverbs of Hell,” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 4870380630457623644236122066, accessed July 23, 2017. 6 Dave Hickey. “Enter the Dragon,” in The Invisible Dragon: Four through the doors, and listened to the sound of the metal curtains that 1790–1793, http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/MarrOfHeaven&HellBlake 34 Cher Krause Knight. Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism. Essays on Beauty. Los Angeles: Art Issues Press, 1993, p. 24. stopped the flies going in. I thought, what could be better protection 1790.pdf, accessed July 28, 2017. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008, p. 51. 7 Jochen Wierich. “The Human Landscape Project,” in Jaume Plensa: to stop flies coming into our lives than poetry; poetry protects us.” 26 Max Nelson. “Suffering Is One Very Long Moment,” The Paris 35 John Berger. Portraits: John Berger on Artists. London and Human Landscape. Nashville, Tennessee: Cheekwood Botanical Pilvi Kalhama and Carsten Ahrens. Jaume Plensa: In the Midst of Review, October 13, 2015. www.theparisreview.orgblog/2015/10/ New York: Verso, 2015, pp. 473–474.

70 71 54. Te artist in his studio, 1983 55. Camí d’Ombres, 1985, iron, 350 x 178 x 600 cm 56. La Soledad, 1985, iron, 350 x 150 x 115 cm

74 75 57. Conversa, 1985. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Galeria Maeght, Barcelona, Spain, 1986 58. La Raó, 1986, iron, 90 x 132 x 295 cm

76 77 59. Paisatge, 1988, iron, 158 x 452 x 220 cm

60. Birnam, 1988, iron, 180 x 110 x 110 cm. Collection Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France

78 61–62. Baudelaire, 1989, cast iron, 410 x 380 x 380 cm

80 64. Voleurs I, 1992, bronze, iron, and mesh, variable dimensions

63. M, 1992, bronze, nylon, silicone, and pigment, 276 x 270 x 270 cm. Collection Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

83 65. Miroir III, 1992, iron and bronze, 255 x 339 x 140 cm 66. Miroir II, 1992, iron and bronze, 269 x 101 x 110 cm

84 85 67. Mémoires Jumelles, 1992. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 68. Twins I, 1993. Installation view of Te Personal Miraculous Fountain, Te Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Dean Clough, UK, 1994 69–70. Prière, 1989. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000

91 71. Te artist’s studio, 1992

92 72–73. Islands, 1995, detail. Installation view of One Tought Fills Immensity, Kunsthalle Göppingen, Göppingen, Germany, 1995

94 95 74–75. Islands, 1995. Installation view of One Tought Fills Immensity, Kunsthalle Göppingen, Göppingen, Germany, 1995

96 97 76. Proverbs of Hell, 1995, polyester resin and iron, 3 elements, 320 x 31 x 13 cm each 77. Cloudy Box XIX - Saché, 1996, polyester resin and iron, 200 x 300 x 300 cm

98 99 79. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain, 1996

78. Giotto-4 (2), 1995, polyester resin and iron, 208 x 210 x 7.5 cm

101 80. Islands II, 1996, black aluminum, Plexiglass vinyl, stainless steel, and neon, 73 lightboxes of variable dimensions. Collection Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

102 103 81–82. Isole a Gubbio, 1996. Installation view of Forma Urbis, XXIII Biennale Gubbio, Convento di San Francesco, Gubbio, Italy, 1996

105 83. Dallas?...Caracas?, 1997. Installation view of Dallas?...Caracas?, Fundación Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Venezuela, 1998 84. Meeting Point, 1998. Installation view at Dallas?...Caracas?, Te McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, USA, 1998. Collection Seven Bridges Foundation, Greenwich, USA

106 107 85. Winter Kept Us Warm II, 1998 / Scholars Of War, Hotel Paris, Komm Mit! Komm Mit!, 1999, polyester resin, iron, and light, 258 x 123 x 110 cm each 86. Love Sounds I, II, III, IV, V, 1998. Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner Gesellschaf, Hannover, Germany, 1999 87. Love Sounds I, II, III, IV, V, 1998, detail. Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner Gesellschaf, Hannover, Germany, 1999

88. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000

112 89–90. Winter Kept Us Warm III, 1999. Installation view of Beyond Limits-Sotheby’s at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, UK, 2007

114 91. White Twins, 2004, glass, stainless steel, wood, and light, 2 elements, 300 x 110 x 180 cm each. Coredo Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan 92. Lady Macbeth, Te Porter, Te Traitor, 2000, molten tempered glass, stainless steel, and light, 231 x 89 x 90 cm each

116 117 93. Installation view of Glückauf?, Stifung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, 2005

94. El Corazón de las Palabras, 2000, glass, mirror, stainless steel, and neon, 304 x 164 x 164 cm. Collection Gannett / USA TODAY, McLean, USA

118 96. Wanderers Nachtlied, 1998. Installation view of Wanderers Nachtlied, Museum Moderner Kunst Stifung Ludwig - Palais Lichtenstein, Vienna, Austria, 1999

95. Scare Of Darkness III, 1998. Installation view of Wanderers Nachtlied, Museum Moderner Kunst Stifung Ludwig - Palais Lichtenstein, Vienna, Austria, 1999

121 97. Wonderland II, 1997. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 98. Wonderland I, 1993. Installation view of Wonderland, Galeria Gamarra-Garrigues, Madrid, Spain, 1994 99. Te Personal Miraculous Fountain, 1993. Installation view of Te Personal Miraculous Fountain, Te Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Dean Clough, UK, 1994 127 100. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Tamada Projects Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, 1999 101–102. Etwas von Mir, 1999. Installation view of Etwas von Mir, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany, 2000

Following pages 103. Wie ein Hauch, 1997. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Palazzo Forti, Verona, Italy, 1998

130

104–105. Golden Sigh I, II, III, 1999. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000

134 135 106. Jerusalem, 2006. Installation view of Jerusalem, Espacio Cultural El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, 2009 107–108. Jerusalem, 2006. Installation view of Jerusalem, L’Aljub, Museo Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2006

138 139 109. Installation view of B.OPEN, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2002 141 110. Wispern, 1998, detail. Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner Gesellschaf, Hannover, Germany, 1999 111. Wispern, 1998. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Església de Sant Domingo, Pollença, Mallorca, Spain, 2002

142 143 112. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 113–114. Constellations, 1998. Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000

146 115. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 116. Installation view of Genus and Species, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, USA, 2010

148 149 117. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 pp. 152–155 118–120. Twentynine Palms, 2007, detail. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011. Collection Umeå University Library, Umeå, Sweden

152 153

121. Te Heart of Trees, 2007. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011

122. Te Heart of Trees, 2007. Installation view of Human Landscape, Te Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, USA, 2016

156 123. Silent Music II, 2013. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015. Collection Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA 124–125. Mirror, 2012, painted stainless steel, 2 elements, 377 x 245 x 253 cm each. Rice University, Houston, USA

160 126–127. Toughts, 2013. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015

162 163 128–129. I, You, She or He, 2006, stainless steel and stone, variable dimensions. Collection Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA

164 130. Nuria, 2007 / Irma, 2010. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 132. Glückauf?, 2004. Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2012

131. Awilda & Irma, 2014. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015

169 133. Where Are You?, 2006. Installation view of Te Snow Show, in collaboration with Norman Foster for the 20th Winter Olympic Games, Sestierre, Turin, Italy, 2006 134. Dialogue, 2009, polyester resin, stainless steel, light, and marble pebbles, variable dimensions. Collection Copperhill Mountain Lodge, Åre, Sweden

170 171 135. Te Tree Graces I, II, III, 2010. Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2012 136. Love-Hate-Spirit, 2012. Installation view of Eight Poets in Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany, 2012. Collection Cafesjian Center for the Arts, Yerevan, Armenia 137–138. Sitting Tattoo XI, 2008. Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2012

176 177 139. See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, 2010. Installation view of Human Landscape, Te Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, USA, 2015 140–141. Air, Water, Void, 2014. Installation view of Te Secret Heart, Schaezlerpalais, Augsburg, Germany, 2014

180 142. L’anima della Musica, 2011, stainless steel, 377 x 235 x 245 cm. Collection Museo del Violino, Cremona, Italy 143. Istanbul Blues, 2012. Installation view during FIAC, Place Vendôme, Paris, France, 2012

182 183 145. Mist, 2014. Installation view of Together, Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015

144. Together, 2014. Installation view of Together, Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015

185 147. Invisible Rui Rui, 2016. Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany, 2016

146. Invisible Irma, 2016. Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany, 2016

187 148. Anonymous, 2016. Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany, 2016 149. Silence, 2017. Installation view of Silence, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA, 2017 150–151. Installation view of La Forêt blanche, Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France, 2016

193 152–153. Silhouettes, 2011–2012. Installation view of Le silence de la pensée, Musée d’art moderne de Céret, Céret, France, 2015

194 154. Installation view of Private Dreams, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2014 155. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, France, 2017 156. Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, France, 2017 157. Te artist in his studio, 2016 158. Laura with Bun, 2014. Installation view of Human Landscape, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA, 2015. Collection Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA Fumio Nanjo Toughts on Two Decades of Collaboration

“All art is public” itself. It can be said that the provocation of a question Jaume Plensa posed results in a kind of connective experience. This act of inquisitiveness and viewer engagement is what epresentations of the human body are among public art truly is, or at least what it should strive to be. the earliest traditions in art and on the royal Plensa has said “all art is public” and in his practice road to traditions in sculpture. For this reason, he always reaches for these moments of connectivity Rit is not easy to create new expressions of the human inside the transcendental experience, beyond physical form, but Jaume Plensa has achieved this. In several existence. Perhaps it is my own cultural affinity for art decades as a curator I have had the opportunity that combines both the ephemeral and the plastic to become close to and work with many contemporary and reaches for a spiritual level of connection that artists. However, Plensa’s special insights into continues to draw me to his work. the human capacity for self-reflection have brought His world—our world—is a world centered on me together with him again and again, leading human beings, paying respect to all that is known, but to a body of public works in Japan that are quite touched by the wonders of the surrounding natural unlike any other. world and especially by answers not yet known. Plensa sees sculpture as a vehicle for inquiry. For him, a sculpture is not primarily an eternal object made Tokyo, November 2017 of bronze or stone, or the simple occupation of space. Rather, it is a phenomenological exercise that builds

on thoughts, sensitivity, and curiosity. It is a process, Fumio Nanjo is a curator and founding director an image, a change, a floating, and finally a thought of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan.

208. Roots, 2014, painted stainless steel, 1,000 x 245 x 526 cm. Mori Building at Toranomon Hills, Tokyo, Japan

260 261 209. Source, 2017, painted stainless steel, 1,000 x 699 x 735 cm. Bonaventure Gateway, Montreal, Canada 210. Pacifc Soul, 2018, painted stainless steel, 800 x 450 x 560 cm. Pacifc Gate, San Diego, USA

262 263 211. Wilsis, 2016. Installation view of 40, Celebrating 40 Years of Art without walls, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2017 Image Checklist

1 6 11 House of Knowledge, 2008 Mist, 2014 Installation view of Together, Collateral Stainless steel Stainless steel Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica 800 x 530 x 550 cm 525 x 421 x 531 cm di San Giorgio Maggiore and Officina Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Installation view of Together, Collateral dell’Arte Espirituale, Isola di San Giorgio Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 Collection Textile Fashion Center, Borås di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di Photo: Jonty Wilde © Plensa Studio Staat, Sweden San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 Barcelona Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Private Collection, USA Park Photo: Jonty Wilde © Plensa Studio 12 Barcelona La Neige Rouge, 1991 2 Cast iron and neon light La Llarga Nit (Blind), 2010 7 251 x 355 x 355 cm Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light Together, 2014 Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio 1,200 x 148 x 205 cm Stainless steel de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire 425 x 147 x 120 cm de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Installation view of Together, Collateral Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica Park di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di 13 San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 Tattoo V, 2004 3 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Plensa Studio Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light Breathing, 2005 Barcelona 226 x 95 x 130 cm Glass, stainless steel, and light Installation view of Glückauf?, Stiftung 1,000 cm high 8 Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, 2005 BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, Glassman II, 2004 Collection Bosch, Stuttgard, Germany London, UK Glass and red wine Photo: Jürgen Diemer © Lehmbruck Photo: © Anna Gordon / BBC 30 x 250 x 90 cm Museum Installation view of Glückauf?, Stiftung 4 Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, 14 Dream, 2009 Germany, 2005 The Secret Heart / Das Geheimherz, 2014 Concrete and Spanish dolomite Private Collection, Toronto, Canada Air-filled fabric and synthetic material, 2,000 x 1,700 x 1,700 cm Photo: Jürgen Diemer © Lehmbruck sound installation Sutton Manor Colliery, St. Helens, UK Museum 2,700 x 2,700 x 1,500 cm Photo: © Stuart Rayner Installation view of The Secret Heart, 9 Gaskessel, Augsburg, Germany, 2014 5 Isabella Whispering, 2016 Photo: Jürgen Diemer © Kunstammlungen Jerusalem, 2006 Marble 220 x 73 x 110 cm Museen Augsburg 11 elements, 130 cm diameter each Private Collection, Tokyo, Japan Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Photo: © Katsumasa Tanaka 15 Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture 10 Musée d’art moderne et contemporain Park Installation view of Anonymous, Galerie de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, Lelong & Co., New York, USA, 2011 France, 2017 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Photo: © Catherine Panchout Barcelona

267 16 27 33 40 46 52 Chloe, 2016 Spiegel I, II, 2010 La Soledad, 1985 The Heart of Trees, 2007 Sea, 1997 Humming, 2011 Polyester resin, stainless steel, and marble Painted stainless steel Iron Bronze and tree, edition of 5 Polyester resin Marble and lead dust 377 x 235 x 245 cm each 350 x 150 x 115 cm 7 elements, variable dimensions 42 x 24 x 37 cm 254 x 94 x 113 cm 732 x 92 x 280 cm Collection The Toledo Museum of Art, Photo: © Ferran Freixa Installation view of Human Landscape, Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Collection of deCordova Sculpture Park Collection Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Toledo, USA Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, Barcelona and Museum, Lincoln, USA Richmond, USA Photo: Richard Goodbody © The Toledo 34 USA, 2015 Museum Purchase, The Frederick P. Walkey Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Museum of Art Etwas von Mir, 1985 Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate 47 Fund, a gift of the Stephen and Sybil Stone Barcelona Iron and copper and Gardens Blood I, 1997 Foundation, and funded by Museum 28 280 x 82 x 82 cm Polyester resin supporters at the 2012 deCordova Benefit. 17 In the Midst of Dreams, 2009 Photo: © Ferran Freixa 41 27 x 38 x 68 cm Dedicated to Mary Levin Koch, in honor Love, 2017 Polyester resin, stainless steel, marble Paris I, II, III, 1989 Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio of her great leadership and generous Polyester resin, stainless steel, marble dust, pebbles, and light 35 Iron Barcelona support of deCordova’s Curatorial Program and water Variable dimensions La Moule, 1999 250 x 250 x 250 cm each Photo: Anchor Imagery 700 x 617 x 1,177 cm Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Bronze, edition of 3 Private Collection, Paris, France 48 Leeuwarden, Netherlands Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA, 2009 13.5 x 9.5 x 5.7 cm Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Tel Aviv Man V, 2004 53 Photo: © Wietze Landman for Collection Centre National des Arts Barcelona Iron Laura, 2013 / Awilda, 2014 Leeuwarden-Friesland European Capital 29 Plastiques, Paris, France, and Private 184 x 96 x 94 cm Basalt of Culture 2018 Silent Rain, 2003 Collections 42 Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Centro 215 x 71 x 70 cm / 201 x 75 x 70 cm Iron Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Self-Portrait, 2013 de Art Contemporaneo de Málaga, Málaga, Collection The Palm Springs Art Museum, 18 8 elements of variable dimensions Barcelona Stainless steel Spain, 2005 Palm Springs, USA Installation view of Secret Garden, Installation view of Silent Rain, Galerie 325 x 350 x 350 cm Collection Adolfo Autric, Madrid, Spain The Galen and the Faye Sarkowsky Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 Lelong & Co., Paris, France, 2003 36 Installation view of Human Landscape, Photo: José Luis Gutiérrez © CAC Sculpture Garden Photo: © Jim Prinz Collection Susan Camilli Foundation, Self-Portrait, 2002 Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA, 2016 Photo: © Richard Gray Gallery New York, USA Bronze, edition of 7 Private Collection, USA 49 19 Photo: Fabrice Gibert © Galerie Lelong, 6 x 7 x 13 cm Photo: Ryan Walsh © Tampa Museum The Soul of Words I, II, 2014 54 Installation view of Secret Garden, Paris Private Collections of Art Painted stainless steel and marble pebbles The artist in his studio, 1983 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 310 x 230 x 290 cm each Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Photo: © Tom Rossiter 30 Barcelona 43 Installation view of Human Landscape, Barcelona Song of Songs, 2005, detail Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Galleria Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, Nashville, 20–24 Iron 37 Gentilli, Florence, Italy, 1994 USA, 2015 55 Installation view of Secret Garden, 6 elements of variable dimensions Islas, 1995 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Collection Riverdale Park Station, Gateway Camí d’Ombres, 1985 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Painted aluminum, methacrylate, vinyl, Barcelona Park, USA Iron Photo: © Jim Prinz Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, stainless steel, and neon Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate 350 x 178 x 600 cm Germany, 2016 73 lightboxes of variable dimensions 44 and Gardens Photo: © Ferran Freixa 25 Private Collections Rambla de Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Betty / Delphine / Fabienne, 1994 Rain, Tears, 2017, detail Photo: Jürgen Vogel © LVR-Landes de Tenerife, Spain Polyester resin and iron 50 56 Mixed media Museum, Bonn Photo: © Efraín Pintos 222 x 59 x 61 cm each We, 2009 La Soledad, 1985 30 x 22 cm Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Painted stainless steel Iron Photo: Gasull Fotografia © Plensa Studio 31 38 Barcelona 500 x 340 x 360 cm 350 x 150 x 115 cm Barcelona Gos, 1985 Green Self-Portrait, 2007 Installation view of Vancouver Biennale, Photo: © Ferran Freixa Iron Bronze, edition 2/5 45 2009–2011, Vancouver, Canada 26 100 x 55 x 90 cm 110 x 52 x 62 cm Bedroom, 1995 Private Collection, Sanya Island, China Installation view of Secret Garden, Photo: © Ferran Freixa Private Collection, New York, USA Polyester resin, iron, synthetic leather, Photo: Dan Fairchild © Vancouver Biennale 57 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2017 Photo: © Ed Reeve and light Conversa, 1985 Photo: © Jim Prinz 32 198 x 87 x 217 cm 51 Iron, pigment, and polyester Cap de Cavall, 1984 39 Collection Fond National d’Art Lilliput VIII / V / VI, 2012 449 x 385 x 350 cm Bronze, edition of 3 Self-Portrait as D. Hammett IV, 2014 Contemporain, Paris, France Painted bronze, steel, and stainless steel Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Galeria 47 x 76 x 26 cm Stainless steel Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 38 x 12 x 9 cm (VII) / 40 x 17 x 11 cm (V) / Maeght, Barcelona, Spain, 1986 Private Collections 118 x 98 x 98 cm Barcelona 32 x 18 x 12 (VI) Photo: © Ferran Freixa Photo: © Ferran Freixa Private Collection Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Photo: Gasull Fotografia © Plensa Studio Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Barcelona Germany, 2016 Photo: Jürgen Vogel © LVR-Landes Museum, Bonn

268 269 58 65 72–73 81–82 87 94 La Raó, 1986 Miroir III, 1992 Islands, 1995, detail Isole a Gubbio, 1996 Love Sounds I, II, III, IV, V, 1998, detail El Corazón de las Palabras, 2000 Iron Iron and bronze Polyester resin, iron, fabric, and glass Concrete and iron Alabaster, stainless steel, synthetic leather, Glass, mirror, stainless steel, and neon 90 x 132 x 295 cm 255 x 339 x 140 cm 73 elements, 105 x 18 x 36 cm each 73 slabs, 3 x 100 x 100 cm each iron light, and sound 304 x 164 x 164 cm Collection ADIF, Spain Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Installation view of One Thought Fills Installation view of Forma Urbis, 2 elements, 212 x 120 x 228 cm each Collection Gannett / USA TODAY, McLean, Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Barcelona Immensity, Kunsthalle Göppingen, XXIII Biennale Gubbio, Convento 3 elements, 212 x 120 x 115 cm each USA Barcelona Göppingen, Germany, 1995 di San Francesco, Gubbio, Italy, 1996 Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner Photo: © Timothy Hursley 66 Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany, 1999 59 Miroir II, 1992 Barcelona Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © Kestner 95 Paisatge, 1988 Iron and bronze 74–75 Gesellschaft Scare Of Darkness III, 1998 Iron 269 x 101 x 110 cm Islands, 1995 83 Nylon, iron, and light 158 x 452 x 220 cm Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Polyester resin, iron, fabric, and glass Dallas?...Caracas?, 1997 88 45 x 65 x 200 cm Private Collection, Barcelona, Spain Barcelona 73 elements, 105 x 18 x 36 cm each 200 black and white photographs in Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Installation view of Wanderers Nachtlied, Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Installation view of One Thought Fills anodized aluminum frame de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig - Barcelona 67 Immensity, Kunsthalle Göppingen, 17 x 40 cm each de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 Palais Lichtenstein, Vienna, Austria, 1999 Mémoires Jumelles, 1992 Göppingen, Germany, 1995 Installation view of Dallas?...Caracas?, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS Photo: Christian Maricic © MUMOK 60 Bronze and iron Photo: Frank Kleinbach © Kunsthalle Fundación Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Birnam, 1988 11 elements, variable dimensions Göppingen Venezuela, 1998 89–90 96 Iron Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Winter Kept Us Warm III, 1999 Wanderers Nachtlied, 1998 180 x 110 x 110 cm de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro 76 Molten tempered glass, stainless steel, Nylon, iron, light, and sound Collection Musée d’Art Contemporain, de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 Proverbs of Hell, 1995 84 and neon 2 elements, 200 x 100 x 400 cm each Lyon, France Private Collection, Barcelona, Spain Polyester resin and iron Meeting Point, 1998 400 x 200 x 200 cm Installation view of Wanderers Nachtlied, Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS 3 elements, 320 x 31 x 13 cm each Aluminum Installation view of Beyond Limits-Sotheby’s Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig - Barcelona Private Collection, Barcelona, Spain 262 x 160 x 230 cm at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, UK, 2007 Palais Lichtenstein, Vienna, Austria, 1999 68 Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Installation view at Dallas?...Caracas?, Photo: © Heath Cooper-Rolant Dafis Photo: Christian Maricic © MUMOK 61–62 Twins I, 1993 Barcelona The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, reproduced by permission of Sotheby’s Baudelaire, 1989 Cast iron, steel, and soil Dallas, USA, 1998 97 Cast iron Variable dimensions 77 Collection Seven Bridges Foundation, 91 Wonderland II, 1997 410 x 380 x 380 cm Installation view of The Personal Miraculous Cloudy Box XIX - Saché, 1996 Greenwich, USA White Twins, 2004 Paraffin, nylon, and light Collection Daniel Hechter, Paris, France Fountain, The Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Polyester resin and iron Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Glass, stainless steel, wood, and light 38 elements, 241 x 60 x 10 cm each Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Dean Clough, UK, 1994 200 x 300 x 300 cm 2 elements, 300 x 110 x 180 cm each Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Barcelona Photo: © Susan Crowe courtesy the Henry Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 85 Coredo Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro Moore Foundation Barcelona Winter Kept Us Warm II, 1998 / Scholars Photo: © Shizuo Nakane de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 63 Of War, Hotel Paris, Komm Mit! Komm Mit!, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS M, 1992 69–70 78 1999 92 Bronze, nylon, silicone, and pigment Prière, 1989 Giotto-4 (2), 1995 Polyester resin, iron, and light Lady Macbeth, The Porter, The Traitor, 2000 98 276 x 270 x 270 cm Cast iron Polyester resin and iron 258 x 123 x 110 cm each Molten tempered glass, stainless steel, Wonderland I, 1993 Collection Museo Nacional Centro de Arte 120 x 440 x 240 cm 208 x 210 x 7.5 cm Collection Fundación Caja de Burgos, Spain, and light Cast iron and light Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio and Private Collections 231 x 89 x 90 cm each 38 elements, 240 x 82 x 4 cm each Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro Barcelona Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Collection Fundación CAM, Spain, Installation view of Wonderland, Barcelona de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 Barcelona and Private Collection, Italy Galeria Gamarra-Garrigues, Madrid, Spain, Private Collection, Barcelona, Spain 79 Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 1994 64 Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Fundació 86 Barcelona Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Voleurs I, 1992 Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain, 1996 Love Sounds I, II, III, IV, V, 1998 Barcelona Bronze, iron, and mesh 71 Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Alabaster, stainless steel, synthetic leather, 93 Variable dimensions The artist’s studio, 1992 iron light, and sound Installation view of Glückauf?, Stiftung 99 Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 80 2 elements, 212 x 120 x 228 cm each Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, The Personal Miraculous Fountain, 1993 Barcelona Barcelona Islands II, 1996 3 elements, 212 x 120 x 115 cm each Germany, 2005 Bronze, water, soil, and light Black aluminum, Plexiglass vinyl, stainless Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner Photo: Jürgen Diemer © Lehmbruck 250 x 140 x 200 cm steel, and neon Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany, 1999 Museum Installation view of The Personal Miraculous 73 lightboxes of variable dimensions Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © Kestner Fountain, The Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Collection Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Gesellschaft Dean Clough, UK, 1994 Germany Photo: © Susan Crowe courtesy the Henry Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Moore Foundation

270 271 100 109 117 124–125 132 137–138 Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Tamada Installation view of B.OPEN, BALTIC Centre Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Mirror, 2012 Glückauf?, 2004 Sitting Tattoo XI, 2008 Projects Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, 1999 for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2002 Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Painted stainless steel Iron Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light Photo: Moriyoshi Sugaya © Tamada Project Photo: © Jerry Hardman-Jones Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture 2 elements, 377 x 245 x 253 cm each Variable dimensions 233 x 125 x 160 cm Corporation Park Rice University, Houston, USA Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, 110 Image courtesy Rice Public Art Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, 101–102 Wispern, 1998, detail 118–120 Photo 1: © Jeff Fitlow Finland, 2012 Finland, 2012 Etwas von Mir, 1999 Bronze, copper, rope, and water Twentynine Palms, 2007, detail Photo 2: Laura Medina Photo: Ari Karttunen © EMMA Photo: Ari Karttunen © EMMA Glass, stainless steel, iron, and rope 7 elements, variable dimensions Stainless steel © Plensa Studio Barcelona Variable dimensions Installation view of Love Sounds, Kestner 29 elements, variable dimensions 133 139 Installation view of Etwas von Mir, Kunsthalle Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany, 1999 Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire 126–127 Where Are You?, 2006 See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany, 2000 Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © Kestner Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Thoughts, 2013 Snow and light 2010 Private Collection, Switzerland Gesellschaft Collection Umeå University Library, Umeå, Stainless steel and stone 2,000 cm diameter x 50 cm depth Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light Photo: Helmut Kunde © Kunsthalle zu Kiel Sweden 310 x 200 x 270 cm Installation view of The Snow Show, in 205 x 148 x 122 cm each 111 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Installation view of Human Landscape, collaboration with Norman Foster for the Installation view of Human Landscape, 103 Wispern, 1998 Park Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, 20th Winter Olympic Games, Sestierre, The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Wie ein Hauch, 1997 Bronze, brass, copper, rope, and water USA, 2015 Turin, Italy, 2006 Nashville, USA, 2015 Glass, iron, brass, and light 41 elements, variable dimensions 121 Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate Photo: © Nigel Young/Foster & Partners Photo: John Schweikert © The Frist Center 410 x 102 x 204 cm Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Església The Heart of Trees, 2007 & Gardens for Visual Arts Installation view of Jaume Plensa, de Sant Domingo, Pollença, Mallorca, Spain, Bronze and tree, edition of 5 134 Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 2002 7 elements, variable dimensions 128–129 Dialogue, 2009 140–141 Palazzo Forti, Verona, Italy, 1998 Photo: © Gunter Lepkowski Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire I, You, She or He, 2006 Polyester resin, stainless steel, light, Air, Water, Void, 2014 Photo: © Maurizio Brenzoni Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Stainless steel and stone and marble pebbles Polyester resin, fiberglass, stainless steel, 112 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Variable dimensions Variable dimensions and LED lighting 104–105 Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Park Collection Frederik Meijer Gardens Collection Copperhill Mountain Lodge, Åre, 215 x 500 x 500 cm Golden Sigh I, II, III, 1999 de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA Sweden Installation view of The Secret Heart, Brass, wood, glass, and light de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 122 Gift of Fred and Lena Meijer Photo: Jonas Kullman © Copperhill Schaezlerpalais, Augsburg, Germany, 2014 300 x 100 x 100 cm Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS The Heart of Trees, 2007 Photo: William J. Hebert courtesy of Mountain Lodge Photo: Jürgen Diemer © Kunstammlungen Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Bronze and tree Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park Museen Augsburg de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro 113–114 7 elements of variable 99 x 66 x 99 cm each 135 de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 Constellations, 1998 Installation view of Human Landscape, 130 The Three Graces I, II, III, 2010 142 Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS Polyester resin, stainless steel, and wrought The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, USA, Nuria, 2007 / Irma, 2010 Painted stainless steel L’anima della Musica, 2011 iron 2016 Stainless steel 203 x 134 x 137 cm each Stainless steel 106 51 elements, variable dimensions Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio 400 x 300 x 400 cm / 400 x 290 x 390 cm Installation view of In the Midst of Dreams, 377 x 235 x 245 cm Jerusalem, 2006 Installation view of Chaos-Saliva, Palacio Barcelona Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Collection Museo del Violino, Cremona, Italy Bronze, rope, wood, and wool de Velázquez, Museo Nacional Centro Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Finland, 2012 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio 9 pairs of gongs, 130 cm diameter each de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2000 123 Private Collection, Seattle, USA Harris Collection, Miami, USA, and Private Barcelona Installation view of Jerusalem, Espacio Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © MNCARS Silent Music II, 2013 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Collections, Los Angeles and Miami, USA Cultural El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Stainless steel and stone Park Photo: Ari Karttunen © EMMA 143 Spain, 2009 115 310 x 230 x 290 cm Istanbul Blues, 2012 Photo: © Efraín Pintos Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Yorkshire Installation view of Human Landscape, 131 136 Painted stainless steel Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK, 2011 Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, Awilda & Irma, 2014 Love-Hate-Spirit, 2012 650 x 355 x 490 cm 107–108 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture USA, 2015 Stainless steel Polyester resin, stainless steel and light Installation view during FIAC, Place Jerusalem, 2006 Park Collection Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, 400 x 400 x 300 cm each 8,000 cm high Vendôme, Paris, France, 2012 Bronze, rope, wood, and wool Nashville, USA Installation view of Human Landscape, Installation view of Eight Poets in Bamberg, Private Collection, Istanbul, Turkey 9 pairs of gongs, 130 cm diameter each 116 Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, Bamberg, Germany, 2012 Photo: © Fabrice Gibert courtesy Galerie Installation view of Jerusalem, L’Aljub, Installation view of Genus and Species, & Gardens USA, 2015 Collection Cafesjian Center for the Arts, Lelong & Co., Paris Museo Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, USA, 2010 Private Collection, USA Yerevan, Armenia Spain, 2006 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate Photo: © Michael Aust Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © Museu Barcelona & Gardens Es Baluard

272 273 144 149 158 163 170–171 177–178 Together, 2014 Silence, 2017 Laura with Bun, 2014 La Llarga Nit (de Ausias March a Vicent Twins II, 1998 The Crown Fountain, 2004 Stainless steel Wood Cast iron Andrés Estellés) I, 2007 Stainless steel and light Glass, stainless steel, LED screens, light, 425 x 147 x 120 cm Variable dimensions 703 x 99 x 310 cm Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light 2 elements, 1,000 x 550 x 250 cm wood, black granite, and water Installation view of Together, Collateral Installation view of Silence, Galerie Lelong Installation view of Human Landscape, 1,200 x 152 x 131cm Gimpo Sculpture Park, Gimpo, 2 towers, 1,600 cm high on 2.2 sq. km Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica & Co., New York, USA, 2017 Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, Installation view of Jaume Plensa. South Korea Millennium Park, Chicago, USA di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola di San USA, 2015 Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Photo: © Studio-42, Seoul Photo 1: © Cesar Russ Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 150–151 Collection Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Spain, 2007 Photo 2: © Hedrich Blessing Photo: Jonty Wilde © Plensa Studio Installation view of La Forêt blanche, USA Collection Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, 172 Barcelona Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France, 2016 Photo: Dean Dixon © Cheekwood Estate USA House of Birds, 1999 179 Photo: © Fabrice Gilbert, courtesy Galerie & Gardens Photo: Juan Carlos Rodriguez © IVAM Stainless steel and galvanized steel Nomade, 2007 145 Lelong & Co., Paris 1,900 x 400 x 200 cm Painted stainless steel Mist, 2014 159 164 Echigo-Tsumari, Mion Nakasato, Niigata, 800 x 550 x 530 cm Stainless steel 152–153 Sho, 2007 Conversation à Nice, 2007 Japan Installation view during Art Basel Miami 525 x 531 x 421 cm Silhouettes, 2011–2012 Painted stainless steel Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light Photo: © ANZA ï Beach, Miami, USA, 2007 Installation view of Together, Collateral Stainless steel 400 x 400 x 300 cm 7 elements, 1,200 cm high each Collection Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Event at the 56th Venice Biennale, Variable dimensions Collection Meadows Museum, Dallas, USA Place Masséna, Nice, France 173 Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, USA Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Isola Installation view of Le silence de la pensée, Photo: © Michael Bodycomb courtesy Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Transparent Doubts, 2000 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2015 Musée d’art moderne de Céret, Céret, of Meadows Museum Barcelona Molten tempered glass, stainless steel, Barcelona Private Collection, USA France, 2015 wood, and light Photo: Jonty Wilde © Plensa Studio Photo: Robin Townsend © Musée d’art 160 165 326 x 137 x 137 cm 180 Barcelona moderne de Céret Dell’arte, 1990 Children’s Soul, 2012 University of Shizuoka for Culture and Art, As One, 2003 Bronze, iron, and concrete Stainless steel Hamamatsu, Japan Neon tubeglass, vinyl, metal, 146 154 300 x 100 x 100 cm 315 x 220 x 375 cm Photo: Yosuke Tsuzuki © Tamada Projects and stainless steel Collection Bonte Museum, Seogwipo, Invisible Irma, 2016 Installation view of Private Dreams, Richard Collection Jardí d’Escultures, Fundació Corporation 4 x 130 m South Korea Stainless steel and steel Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2014 Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Photo: Courtesy Bonte Museum 170 x 80 x 73 cm Photo: Tom Van Eynde © Richard Gray Photo: Lluís Bover © Plensa Studio 174 Toronto, Canada Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Gallery Barcelona Seven Deities of Good Fortune, 2000 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio 166 Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Glass, stainless steel, wood, and light Barcelona Dream, 2009 Germany, 2016 155 161 7 elements, 250 x 120 x 80 cm each Concrete and Spanish dolomite Photo: Jürgen Vogel © LVR-Landes Museum, Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Musée Auch, 1991 Daikanyama, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan 181 2,000 x 1,700 x 1,700 cm Bonn d’art moderne et contemporain de Iron and light Photo: © ANZA ï Breathing, 2005 Sutton Manor Colliery, St. Helens, UK Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, 5 x 1,000 x 1,000 cm Glass, stainless steel, and light Photo: © Stuart Rayner 147 France, 2017 Escalier Monumentale / Place Barbès, Auch, 175 1,000 cm high Invisible Rui Rui, 2016 Photo: Yves Bresson © MAMC France Mi Casa en Torrelavega, 2001 BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, 167 Stainless steel and steel Photo: Leopold Samsó © Plensa Studio Polycarbonate, stainless steel, and light London, UK Looking into My Dreams, Awilda, 2012 170 x 90 x 140 cm 156 Barcelona 1,150 x 250 x 250 cm Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Polyester resin and marble dust Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, Max Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Musée Torrelavega, Santander, Spain Barcelona 1,200 x 350 x 440 cm Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, d’art moderne et contemporain de 162 Photo: © Bustamante Hurtado Installation view of Oir Rio, Outras ideias Germany, 2016 Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, The Crown Fountain, 2004 182 para o Rio, Enseada de Botafogo, Photo: Jürgen Vogel © LVR-Landes Museum, France, 2017 Glass, stainless steel, LED screens, light, 176 El Alma del Ebro, 2008 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2012 Bonn Photo: © Catherine Panchout wood, black granite, and water Bridge of Light, 2000 Painted stainless steel Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2 towers, 1,600 cm high on 2.2 sq. km Teak, stainless steel, glass, and light 1,100 x 850 x 840 cm Miami, USA 148 157 Millennium Park, Chicago, USA 57 x 515 x 515 cm; beam of light Expo 2008 enclosure, Zaragoza, Spain Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Anonymous, 2016 The artist in his studio, 2016 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio 1 km high Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Wood Photo: Inés Baucells © Plensa Studio Barcelona Mishkenot sha’ananim, Jerusalem, Israel 168–169 Variable dimensions Barcelona Photo: © The Jerusalem Foundation 183–184 Blake in Gateshead, 1996 Installation view of Die Innere Sicht, World Voices, 2010 Cast iron, steel, glass, and light Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Stainless steel, bronze, brass, gold, 5 x 500 x 180 cm; beam of light 2 km high Germany, 2016 and droplets of water Collection BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Photo: Jürgen Vogel © LVR-Landes Museum, 196 cymbals, variable dimensions Art, Gateshead, UK Bonn Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE Photo: © Plensa Studio Barcelona Photo: © Crystal Fountains Inc.

274 275 185 190 196 202 208 Paula, 2013 Tolerance, 2011 Looking into My Dreams, Awilda, 2012 Rui Rui, 2013 Roots, 2014 Cast Iron Stainless steel and stone Polyester resin and marble dust Cast iron Painted stainless steel 703 x 98 x 255 cm 7 figures of variable dimensions 1,200 x 350 x 440 cm 703 x 92 x 320 cm 1,000 x 245 x 526 cm Collection The Toledo Museum of Art, Harmony Walk, Buffalo Bayou Park, Houston, Installation view of Oir Rio, Outras ideias Installation view of Glasstress White Light / Mori Building at Toranomon Hills, Tokyo, Toledo, USA USA para o Rio, Enseada de Botafogo, White Heat, Collateral Event at the 55th Japan Purchased with funds given in memory Photo: © Debra Ham Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2012 Venice Biennale, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, Photo: © Mori Art Museum of Frank Snug by his family, from Margy Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, Venice, Italy, 2013 and Scott Trumbull, and from Tom and Betsy 191 Miami, USA Collection The FLAG Art Foundation, New 209 Brady, and purchased with funds from Echo, 2011 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio York, USA Source, 2017 the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Polyester resin and marble dust Barcelona Photo: © Francesco Allegretto Painted stainless steel Drummond Libbey, 2017.11 1,400 x 435 x 350 cm 1,000 x 699 x 735 cm Photo: © Toledo Museum of Art Installation view of Jaume Plensa, Madison 197 203 Bonaventure Gateway, Montreal, Canada Square Park, New York, USA, 2011 Looking into My Dreams, Awilda, 2012 Inés, 2013 Donated by France Chrétien Desmarais 186 Collection Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Polyester resin and marble dust Cast iron & André Desmarais Laura, 2012 Art Museum, Seattle, USA 1,200 x 350 x 440 cm 703 x 87 x 255 cm Photo: © Eva Blue Marble, lead, and stainless steel Donated by Barney A. Ebsworth Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, Havard Business School, Harvard University, 600 x 180 x 242 cm Photo: James Ewing © Madison Square Park Miami, USA Boston, USA 210 Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, Art, New York Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Photo: © Charles Mayer Pacific Soul, 2018 USA Barcelona Painted stainless steel Photo: Tom Loonan © Albright-Knox Art 192–193 204 800 x 450 x 560 cm Pacific Gate, San Diego, USA Gallery Echo, 2011 198–199 Anna, 2015 Photo: © Dustin Bailey Polyester resin and marble dust Ogijima’s Soul, 2010 Polyester resin and marble dust 187 1,400 x 435 x 350 cm Stainless steel, glass, wood, and concrete 1,400 x 430 x 570 cm 211 Awilda in Salzburg, 2010 Collection Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Ogijima Community Hall Building, Ogijima, Installation view of Skulptur i Pilane Wilsis, 2016 Marble Art Museum, Seattle, USA Seto Inland Sea, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan 2016, Sältebo Gård, Klövedal, Cast iron 500 x 145 x 180 cm Donated by Barney A. Ebsworth Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Sweden, 2016 724 x 92 x 288 cm Dietrichsruh Courtyard, The University Photo: © Seattle Art Museum Barcelona Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Installation view of 40, Celebrating 40 Years of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria Studio Barcelona of Art without walls, Yorkshire Sculpture Würth Collection / Salzburg Foundation 194 200 Park, West Bretton, UK, 2017 Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio La Llarga Nit (de Ausias March a Vicent House of Knowledge, 2008 205 Photo: Jonty Wilde © Yorkshire Sculpture Barcelona Andrés Estellés) I, II, 2009 Stainless steel Nomade, 2010 Polyester resin, stainless steel, and light 800 x 550 x 530 cm Painted stainless steel 188 2 elements, 1,200 cm high each Installation view of Jaume Plensa 800 x 550 x 530 cm Carmela, 2015 Collection Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, à Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, 2013 Port Vauban, Musée Picasso, Cast iron USA Collection Textile Fashion Center, Antibes, France 450 x 51 x 170 cm Photo: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio Borås, Sweden Photo: Jean-Louis Andral © Musée Sant Pere més Alt-Palau de la Música Barcelona Photo: Thomas Sanson © Mairie Picasso Catalana, Barcelona, Spain de Bordeaux Photo: Gasull Fotografia © Plensa Studio 195 206–207 Barcelona Conversation à Nice, 2007 201 Wonderland, 2012 Polyester resin, stainless steel, Sanna, 2013 Painted steel 189 and light Cast iron 1,200 x 780 x 1,070 cm Alchemist, 2010 7 elements, 1,200 cm high each 703 x 98 x 255 cm The Bow, Calgary, Canada Painted stainless steel Place Masséna, Nice, France Place de la Comédie, Bordeaux, France Photo 1: Laura Medina © Plensa Studio 500 x 365 x 345 cm Photo: Éric Boizet © Ville de Nice Photo: Thomas Sanson © Mairie de Barcelona Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bordeaux Photo 2: © EnCana / Richard Gray Gallery Cambridge, USA Photo: Patrick Gillooly © MIT News Office

276 277 Bibliography

Select Monographs 2015 2011 • Jaume Plensa, Matriz y Múltiple. Museo • Jaume Plensa, Echo Mad. Sq. Art 2011. • Jaume Plensa, El Corazón Secreto. Casa de la Moneda, Madrid, Spain Madison Square Park Conservancy, Entrevistas. Published by Ed. Paidós / Jaume • Le silence de la pensée. Musée d’art New York, USA Plensa, El Cor Secret. Entrevistes. Published moderne de Céret, Céret, France • Jaume Plensa. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, by Edicions 62, Barcelona, Spain, 2016 • Human Landscape. Cheekwood Estate & Wakefield, UK • Jaume Plensa, Le Cœur Secret, Entretiens / Gardens in partnership with The Frist Center The Secret Heart, Interviews. Published by for the Visual Arts, Nashville, USA 2010 Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France, 2016 • Together. Collateral Event of the 56th • L’ Âme des Mots. Musée Picasso, Antibes, • Rafael Argullol. Jaume Plensa “58.” International Venice Biennale. Basilica di San France Published by Ediciones Artika, Barcelona, Giorgio Maggiore and Officina dell’Arte • Genus and Species. Nasher Sculpture Spain, 2015 Spirituale, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Center, Dallas, USA • Caroline Joubert. Jaume Plensa. Livres, Venice, Italy Estampes Et Multiples Sur Papier / Books, 2008 Prints and Multiples on Paper 1978–2012. 2014 • Nomade. Musée Picasso and Published by Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, • Jaume Plensa, Sculptures and Drawings. Managements of Museums de la Ville France, 2012 Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College d’Antibes, France • Keith Patrick. Jaume Plensa, The Crown North Carolina, Davidson, USA • Jaume Plensa. Frederik Meijer Gardens Fountain. Published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, • Jaume Plensa. Published in conjunction and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA Ostfildern, Germany, 2008 with the exhibitions Private Dreams, Richard • Save our Souls. Albion Gallery, London, UK • Carsten Ahrens. Jaume Plensa. Essays by Gray Gallery, Chicago, and 1004 Portraits, Carsten Ahrens, José Jiménez, Robert Millennium Park, Chicago, USA 2007 Hopper, Dr. Stefan von Senger, Keith Patrick, • The Secret Heart / Das Geheimherz. • Jaume Plensa. Institut Valencià d’Art Susan Crown, and Jaume Plensa. Published Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg; Modern, Valencia / Musée d’art moderne by Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona, Spain, Gaskessel Augsburg-Oberhausen, et d’art contemporain, Nice, France 2003 Schaezlerpalais and H2-Zentrum für • Sinónimos. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Gegenwartskunst im Glaspalast, Augsburg, Spain Germany Select Solo Exhibition Catalogs • Jaume Plensa, Skulpturen. Skulpturenpark 2006 Waldfrieden, Wuppertal, Germany • I in his eyes as one that found peace. 2017 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA • Jaume Plensa. Musée d’art moderne 2013 • Jaume Plensa, Llibres, Estampes i múltiples et contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole, • Jaume Plensa à Bordeaux. Bordeaux, 1978-2006. Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Saint-Étienne, France France Palma de Mallorca, Spain • Lilliput. Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France • Une âme, deux corps… trois ombres. 2016 Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France • Die Innere Sicht. Max Ernst Museum Brühl 2012 • Jerusalem. Fundació Es Baluard, des LVR, Brühl, Germany • In the Midst of Dreams. Espoo Museum Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani, of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland Palma de Mallorca, Spain • Eight Poets in Bamberg. Bamberg, Germany • Silhouettes. Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France

279 Select Exhibitions, Public Projects, Museum and Public Collections, Awards

2005 1999 1990 Solo Exhibitions 2014 2010 • Jaume Plensa. Centro de Arte • Wanderers Nachtlied. Museum Moderner • Jaume Plensa. Galerie de France, Paris, • Jaume Plensa, Sculptures and Drawings. • The Heart of Trees. Nasher Museum of Art Contemporáneo de Málaga, Málaga, Spain Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria France 2018 Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College at Duke University, Durham, USA • Song of Songs. Albion Gallery, London, UK • Love Sounds. Kestner Gesellschaft, • Prière. Galeria Carles Taché, Barcelona, • Jaume Plensa at Djurgården. Djurgården, North Carolina, Davidson, USA • Cantique des Cantiques. Galerie Alice • Glückauf?. Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Hannover, Germany Spain Stockholm, Sweden, organized by Galleri • 1004 Portraits. Millennium Park, Chicago, USA Pauli, Lausanne, Switzerland Museum, Duisburg / Zentrum Internationaler Andersson/Sandström, Sweden • Private Dreams. Richard Gray Gallery, • Around Shadows. Galerie Scheffel, Skulptur Duisburg / Kunsthalle Mannheim, 1998 Chicago, USA Bad Homburg, Germany Ed. Braus, Germany • Dallas?...Caracas?. The McKinney Avenue 2017 • The Secret Heart. Gaskessel/ • Alphabets de l’Âme. Galerie Lelong & Co., • Jaume Plensa, Opera, Teatro y Amigos / Contemporary, Dallas, USA & Fundación • Talking Continents. Madison Museum of Schaezlerpalais/H2 Zentrum fur Paris, France Opera, Theater & Friends. Fundación ICO, Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Venezuela Contemporary Art, Madison, USA Gegenwartskunst im Glaspalast, Augsburg, • L’Âme des mots. Musée Picasso, Antibes, Madrid, Spain • Water. Fonds Régional d’Art • Secret Garden. Richard Gray Gallery, Germany France • Thirteen Doubts. Galerie Scheffel, Bad Contemporain, Picardie, France Chicago, USA • Jaume Plensa, Skulpturen. Skulpturepark • Jaume Plensa, Obra sobre papel. Galería Homburg, Germany • One Thought Fills Immensity. Richard Gray Waldfrieden, Wuppertal, Germany Estiarte, Madrid, Spain 1997 Gallery, Chicago, USA • Jaume Plensa, una trayectoria. Premio • Genus and Species. Nasher Sculpture 2004 • Jaume Plensa. Fundació Joan Miró, • Jaume Plensa. Musée d’art moderne et Nacional de Arte Gráfico 2013. Calcografía Center, Dallas, USA • Jaume Plensa, Livres, estampes et Barcelona, Spain / Galerie Nationale du Jeu contemporain, Saint-Étienne Métropole, Nacional – Real Academia de Bellas Artes multiples sur papier / Books, prints and de Paume, Paris, France / Malmö Konsthall, Saint-Étienne, France San Fernando, Madrid, Spain 2009 Multiples on paper. • 1978–2004. Fundación Malmö, Sweden / Städtische Kunsthalle • Silence. Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA • Jerusalem. Espacio Cultural El Tanque, César Manrique / Institut Valencià d’Art Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany 2013 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain Modern / Musée des Beaux Arts de Caen, 2016 • Talking Continents. Galerie Lelong & Co., • Triptych. Mario Mauroner Contemporary France 1996 • El Bosc Blanc. Galeria Senda, Barcelona, Spain New York, USA Art, Vienna, Austria • Silent Noise. Ed. Ministerio de Asuntos • Jaume Plensa. Centre de Cultura Sa • Die innere Sicht. Max Ernst Museum Brühl • Jaume Plensa à Bordeaux. Bordeaux, • In the Midst of Dreams. Galerie Lelong Exteriores / Dirección General Nostra, Palma de Mallorca, Spain des LVR, Brühl, Germany France & Co., New York, USA de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas / • Human Landscape. Tampa Museum of Art, • Jaume Plensa, Éditions 2012-2013. Galerie • Jaume Plensa. Galeria Toni Tàpies, Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural 1995 Tampa, USA. Travelled to The Toledo Lelong & Co., Paris, France Barcelona, Spain Exterior SEACEX, Madrid, Spain • One Thought Fills Immensity. Städtische Museum of Art, Toledo, USA • Slumberland. Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, Galerie Göppingen, Göppingen, Germany • Jaume Plensa. Palau de la Música Catalana, 2012 France 2002 Barcelona, Spain • In the Midst of Dreams. Espoo Museum • Silent Music. Diehl + Gallery One, Moscow, • Wispern. Església de Sant Domingo, 1994 • La Forêt blanche. Galerie Lelong & Co., of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland Russia Ajuntament de Pollença, Mallorca, Spain • The Personal Miraculous Fountain. The Paris, France • Eight Poets in Bamberg. Bamberg, Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, Leeds, UK Germany 2008 2001 2015 • Jaume Plensa. Galeria Eduardo Leme, • Jaume Plensa. Centro de Arte Caja • Gläserne Seele: Mister Net in Brandenburg 1993 • Jaume Plensa, Matriz y Múltiples. Museo São Paulo, Brazil de Burgos, Burgos, Spain – Generation_0. Ministeriums für Wirtschaft, • Memoires Jumelles. Galerie de France, Casa de la Moneda, Madrid, Spain • Umedalen Skulptur 2012, Focus on • Jaume Plensa. Frederik Meijer Gardens Land Brandenburg, zur EXPO 2000, q-bus Paris - Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne, • Silent Faces. Haines Gallery, San Francisco, Jaume Plensa. Umedalen Skulpturpark, and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Mediatektur GmbH, Germany Switzerland USA Umeå, Sweden USA • Close Up. New Moment - Mestna Galerija, • Le silence de la pensée. Musée d’art • Silhouettes. Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, • La Riva de Acheronte. Evangeliche Ljubljana, Slovenia 1992 moderne de Céret, Céret, France France Stadtkirche, Darmstadt, Germany • Auch 1991, Jaume Plensa. Obra pública • Human Landscape. Cheekwood Estate & • Save our Souls. Albion Gallery, London, 2000 para Auch, Ministère de la Culture en France Gardens and The Frist Center for the Visual 2011 UK • Chaos-Saliva. Museo Nacional Centro de Mairie d’Auch, France Arts, Nashville, USA • The Hermit. Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Arte Reina Sofía, Palacio de Velázquez, • Together. Collateral event of the USA Madrid, Spain 1991 56th International Venice Biennale. Basilica • Anonymous. Galerie Lelong & Co., • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Eric Franck, Geneva, di San Giorgio Maggiore and Officina New York, USA Switzerland dell’Arte Spirituale, Isola di San Giorgio • Echo. Mad. Sq. Art. Madison Square Park, Maggiore, Venice, Italy New York, USA • Jaume Plensa, New Works. Galleri • Jaume Plensa. Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Andersson, Stockholm, Sweden Wakefield, UK

280 281 2007 2004 2000 1996 1989 • Echo, 2011 • Jaume Plensa. Musée d’art moderne • Anònim. Galeria Toni Tàpies, Barcelona, • Twin Shadows. Galerie Lelong & Co., New • Jaume Plensa. Fundació Joan Miró, • Jaume Plensa. The Sharpe Gallery, Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Art et d’art contemporain, Nice, France Spain York / Richard Gray Gallery, New York, USA Barcelona, Spain New York, USA Museum, Seattle, USA, a gift from • Jaume Plensa. Institut Valencià d’Art • Jaume Plensa. Galleria Gentili–Villa il Tasso, • Jaume Plensa, Proverbs of Hell. Mario • Blake in Gateshead. Baltic Flour Mills, Mr. Barney A. Ebsworth Collection, 2014 Modern, Valencia, Spain Montecatini, Italy Mauroner Contemporary Art, Salzburg, Gateshead, UK 1988 Echo. Mad. Sq. Art. Madison Square Park, • Nomade. Bastion Saint-Jaume–Port • Jaume Plensa, Livres, estampes et Austria • Close Up. Office in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel • Jaume Plensa. Musée d’Art Contemporain, New York, USA (May–September 2001) Vauban, organized by Musée Picasso, multiples sur papier 1979-2003. Musée des • Jaume Plensa 360º. Museo Municipal • Islands. Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, USA Lyon, France • Soul, 2011 Antibes / Ocean Drive, Art Basel–Miami Beaux Arts, Caen, France / Fundación César de Málaga, Málaga, Spain • Jaume Plensa. Centre de Cultura Sa Ocean Financial Centre, Singapore Beach, organized by Richard Gray Gallery, Manrique, Lanzarote, Spain • Chaos–Saliva. Palacio de Velázquez–Museo Nostra, Palma de Mallorca, Spain 1987 • Tolerance, 2011 Chicago and Galerie Lelong & Co., • Il suono del sangue parla la stessa lingua. Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, • Jaume Plensa. Halle Sud, Geneva, Harmony Walk, Buffalo Bayou Park, Allen New York, USA VOLUME!, Rome, Italy Madrid, Spain 1995 Switzerland Parkway at Montrose Boulevard, Houston, USA • Silent Voices. Museum at Tamada Projects, • Fiumi e cenere. Palazzo delle Papesse, • Wonderland. Galerie Daniel Templon, • Body of Knowledge, 2010 Tokyo, Japan Siena, Italy 1999 Paris, France 1986 Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am • Sinónimos. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, • Silent Noise. The Arts Club of Chicago, • Etwas von Mir. Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, • One thought fills immensity. Städtische • Jaume Plensa. Galeria Maeght, Barcelona, Main, Germany Spain Chicago / Contemporary Arts Center, Germany Galerie, Göppingen, Germany Spain • Alchemist, 2010 New Orleans / University Gallery-Fine Arts • Jaume Plensa. Tamada Projects Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006 Center UMASS, Amherst, USA Corporation, Tokyo, Japan 1994 Cambridge, USA • I in his eyes as one that found peace. • Bruit. Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France • Cal.ligrafies. Edicions T Galeria d’Art, Public Projects • Awilda in Salzburg, 2010 Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago–New York, 2003 • Komm mit, komm mit!. Rupertinum Barcelona, Spain Dietrichsrush, Salzburg University, Sigmund USA • Crystal Rain. Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, Museum, Salzburg, Austria • Jaume Plensa, Un Sculpteur, Une Ville. • Pacific Soul, 2018 Haffner-Gasser, Salzburg, Austria • Une âme, deux corps…trois ombres. France • Whisper. Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Valence, France Pacific Gate, San Diego, USA • Ogijima’s Soul, 2010 Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Academia, Salzburg, USA • Jaume Plensa. Galleria Cívica di Modena, • Love, 2017 Ogijima Community Hall, Seto Inland Sea, • Jerusalem. Museu d’Art Modern Austria • Jaume Plensa. Galeria Toni Tàpies–Edicions Modena, Italy Stationsplein, Leeuwarden, Friesland, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan i Contemporani Es Baluard, L’Aljub, • Who? Why?. Galerie Lelong & Co., T, Barcelona, Spain • The Personal Miraculous Fountain. The The Netherlands • Nomade, 2010 Palma de Mallorca, Spain New York, USA • Wanderers Nachtlied. Museum Moderner Henry Moore Studio at Dean Clough, Halifax Project for “11 FOUNTAINS” / Leeuwarden Bastion Saint Jaume, Port Vauban, • Canetti’s Dream. Mario Mauroner • Hot? Sex?. Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Palais Liechtenstein, Fryslân 2018-Culturele Hoofdstad van Quai Rambaud, Antibes, France Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austria Spain Vienna, Austria 1993 Europa • World Voices, 2010 • Songs and Shadows. Galerie Lelong & Co., • Love Sounds. Kestner Gesellschaft, • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin, • Bangkok’s Soul, 2017 Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE New York, USA 2002 Hannover, Germany Germany MahaNakhon Building, Bangkok, Thailand • Dream, 2009 • Jaume Plensa, Livres, estampes et • Rumor. Centro Cultural de España, Mexico • Mémoires Jumelles. Galerie Alice Pauli, • Possibilities, 2016 Sutton Manor Colliery, St. Helens, Liverpool, UK multiples 1978–2006. Centre de la Gravure City, Mexico 1998 Lausanne, Switzerland, and Galerie Lotte World Tower, Seoul, South Korea • House of Knowledge, 2008 La Louvière, La Louvière, Belgium / Fundació • Wispern. Església de Sant Domingo, • Jaume Plensa. Galleria d’Arte Moderna de France, Paris, France • Carmela, 2015 Textile Fashion Center, Borås Staat, Borås, Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca, Pollença, Mallorca, Spain e Contemporanea – Palazzo Forti, Verona, Sant Pere més Alt - Palau de la Música Sweden Spain • B.OPEN, Jaume Plensa. BALTIC Centre Italy 1992 Catalana, Barcelona, Spain • El Alma del Ebro, 2008 for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK • Dallas?...Caracas?. Fundación Museo • Jaume Plensa. The Royal Scottish • Roots, 2014 EXPO 2008-Exposición Internacional 2005 • Jaume Plensa. Fondation Européenne pour Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Venezuela / The Academy, Edinburgh, UK Toranomon Hills, Tokyo, Japan de Zaragoza, Ranillas, Zaragoza, Spain • Jaume Plensa. CAC–Málaga, Centro la Sculpture, Parc Tournay–Solvay, Brussels, Mckinney Avenue Contemporary Art, Dallas, • Jaume Plensa. Galeria Carles Taché, • Looking into My Dreams, Awilda, 2012 • Conversation à Nice, 2007 de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, Spain Belgium USA Barcelona, Spain Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, USA, 2017 Place Masséna, Nice, France • Is art something in between?. Kunsthalle • Primary Thoughts. Galería Helga de Alvear, • Golden Sigh. Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne, 1004 Portraits. Millennium Park, Chicago, • Nomade, 2007 Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany Madrid, Spain Switzerland 1991 USA (2014–2015) Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Des Moines Art • 13 doubts. English Church / Galerie • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Pièce Unique, Paris, • Jaume Plensa. P.S. Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Olhar nos meus sonhos, Awilda. Enseada Centre, Des Moines, USA Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany 2001 France • Monocroms. Galería B.A.T., Madrid, Spain Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012) • Breathing, 2005 • Song of Songs. Albion Gallery, London, • Close Up. Mestna Galerija, Ljubljana, • Water. Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Eric Franck, Geneva, • Wonderland, 2012 BBC Broadcasting House, London, UK UK Slovenia de Picardie, Amiens, France Switzerland The Bow, Calgary, Alberta, Canada • The Crown Fountain, 2004 • Glückauf?. Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck • Logbook. Galerie Diehl–Vorderwuelbecke, • L’anima della Musica, 2012 Millennium Park, Chicago, USA Museum, Duisburg, Germany Berlin, Germany 1997 1990 Museo del Violino, Cremona, Italy • As One, 2003 • Jaume Plensa, Ópera, Theater and • Europa. Galeria Toni Tàpies, Barcelona, • Wie ein Hauch. Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin, • Dibuixos. Galeria Carles Taché, Barcelona, • Laura, 2012 Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Friends. Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid, Spain Germany Spain Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, USA Baggage Claim Area, Toronto, Canada Spain • Jaume Plensa. Galerie Nationale du Jeu de • Jaume Plensa. Eglise de Courmerlois–Silo • House of Memory, 2012 • Talking Continents, 2003 Paume, Paris, France. Travelled to Malmö Art Contemporain, Reims–Val-de-Vesle, Shanghai IFC Mall, Lujiazui, Pudong, Jacksonville Arena Plaza, Jacksonville, USA Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden, and Städtische France Shanghai, China • Bridge of Light, 2002 Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany • Jaume Plensa. Galerie de France, Paris, • Mirror, 2012 Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem, Israel • Rumore. Fattoria di Celle, Santomato France Campus of the Rice University, Houston, • Seele?, 2002 di Pistoia, Italy USA Neanderthal Park, Düsseldorf, Germany

282 283 • Mi Casa en Torrelavega, 2001 • Chadha Art Collection, Amsterdam, • H2 Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst im • Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, • Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 2010 Paseo de Julio Hauzeur, Torrelavega, Spain Netherlands Glaspalast, Augsburg, Germany Vienna, Austria Virginia, USA • Civic Trust Award • Magritte’s Dream, 2001 • Colección AENA, Madrid, Spain • Harvard University, Cambridge, • Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Liverpool, UK Aino Station, Fukuroi City, Japan • Colección Banco de España, Madrid, Spain Massachusetts, USA Illinois, USA • Gläserner Seele or Mr. Net in Brandenburg, • Colección e Arte Iberdrola, Spain • Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, • Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Awards 2009 2000 • Colección Fundación Coca-Cola, Spain Spain Durham, North Carolina, USA • Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Postdam, Land Brandenburg, Germany • Colección Instituto de Crédito Oficial, • Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa • Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas, USA 2018 Sculpture • Seven Deities of Good Fortune, 2000 Madrid, Spain Concordia, Ansbach, Germany • National Museum of Korea, Seoul, Korea • Awarded Doctor Honoris Causa London, UK Daikanyama, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan • Collection Ayuntamiento de Ceutí, Spain • Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, • New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona • Transparent Doubts, 2000 • Contemporary Art Museum of Honolulu, Kansas City, Missouri, USA Louisiana, USA Barcelona, Spain 2007 University of Shizuoka for Culture and Art, Honolulu, USA • Kirishima Open Air Museum, Kyushu, Japan • North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, • Heitland Foundation Prize Hamamatsu, Japan • Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rolling Collage, • Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch, Germany North Carolina, USA 2016 Celle, Germany • The House of Birds, 1999 Winter Park, Florida, USA • Museu d’Art Contemporari de Barcelona, • Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, • Honorary Member Mion Nakasato, Japan • Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, USA Barcelona, Spain California, USA University Council of the Arts. University 2006 • Twins II, 1998 • Davidson College, Davidson, North • Manufactures Nationales de Sèvres, Sèvres, • Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, Florida, USA of Alcalá-UAH. Alcalá de Henares, Spain • The Bombay Sapphire Prize / Annual Kimpo Sculpture Park, Kimpo, Seoul, Carolina, USA France • Peyrassol Park de Sculptures, Flassans sur International Award for Glass Work South Korea • deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Issole, France 2015 London, UK • Blake in Gateshead, 1996 Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA • Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA • Global Fine Art Awards; Best Public • Villa de Madrid Etching Award BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, • Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, • Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas, USA • Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, USA Outdoor Installation Madrid, Spain Gateshead, UK USA • Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Japan • Salzburg Museum, Salzburg, Austria Miami, USA • Islas, 1995 • Deutsche Bank, Barcelona, Spain • Miel de Botton Sculpture Garden, London, UK • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, • Premi Atlàntida 2005 Rambla de Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz • Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham, • Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, San Francisco, California, USA Publishers Guild of Catalonia, Barcelona, • Awarded Honorary Doctorate of the School de Tenerife, Spain North Carolina, USA Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, USA • Seattle Art Museum, Olympic Sculpture Spain of The Art Institute Of Chicago • Faret Tachikawa, 1994 • Enea Tree Museum, Rapperswil-Jona, • Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Park, Seattle, Washington, USA • Acadèmic D’honor de La Reial Acadèmia Chicago, USA Tachikawa City, Japan Zürich, Switzerland Wisconsin, USA • Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi • Born, 1992 • Fondation Paribas, Paris, France • Mobilier National & Manufactures • Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden Royal Academy of Fine Arts Sant Jordi, 2003 Passeig del Born, Barcelona, Spain • Fondation pour l’Art Contemporain Nationales des Tapis et Tapisseries, France • Skulpturenpark Waltfrieden, Wuppertal, Barcelona, Spain • Villa de Madrid Sculpture Award • Auch, 1991 Claudine et Jean-Marc Salomon, Alex, France • Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan Germany Madrid, Spain Escalier Monumentale / Place Barbès, Auch, • Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain, • Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France • Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA 2014 France Paris, France • Musée d’art modern de Céret, Céret, France • Städtische Galerie Göppingen, • Ciutat de Barcelona Awards 1999 • Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, • Musée des Beaux Arts de Montreal, Göppingen, Germany Barcelona, Spain • Gold Medal of Prague Quadrennial France Montreal, Canada • Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, • Tomás Francisco Prieto Award for Stage Design and Theatre Architecture Museum and Public Collections • Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain • Musée du Fonds Régional d’Art Mannheim, Germany Royal Spanish Mint / National Coinage Prague, Czech Republic Picardie, Amiens, France Contemporain Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France • Stiftung für Kunst / Salzburg Foundation, and Stamp Factory, Madrid, Spain • Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, • Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain, • Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Español Salzburg, Austria 1998 New York, USA Castres, France Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain • Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, USA 2013 • Koiné Award • Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA • Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculputure • Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MACUF, • The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, • Velazquez Prize Milan, Italy / Honorific exhibition at the • BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Gardens, Grand Rapids, USA A Coruña, Spain Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA Spanish Ministry of Culture, Madrid, Spain Palazzo Forti, Verona, Italy Gateshead, UK • Fundació d’Art Contemporari “La Caixa,” • Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía • The Burger Collection, Hong Kong • Iserlohner Kunstpreis 2013 • Prize of the Spanish Association of Art • Banque Européenne d’Investissement, Barcelona, Spain Imber, Caracas, Venezuela • The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Villa Wessel, Iserlohn, Germany Critics Luxemburg, Germany • Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain • Museo de Bellas Artes de Alava, Vitoria, Cleveland, USA • National Award for Graphic Arts Madrid, Spain • Basma Al Sulaiman Museum • Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma Spain • The FLAG Art Foundation, New York City, USA National Chalcography, Madrid, Spain 1997 of Contemporary Art, Saudi Arabia de Mallorca, Spain • Museo del Violino, Cremona, Italy • The Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu, Japan • National Art Award of Catalonia • Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, • Fundación Caixa Galicia, A Coruña, Spain • Museo Fundación ICO, Madrid, Spain • The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA 2012 Barcelona, Spain France • Fundación Caja de Burgos, Burgos, Spain • Museo Junta de Comunidades de Castilla • Towada Arts Center, Towada, Japan • National Award for Plastic Arts • Bonte Museum, Seogwipo, South Korea • Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain la Mancha, Toledo, Spain • Umedalen Skulptur Park, Umeå, Sweden Ministry of Education and Culture, Madrid, 1996 • Bosch Collection, Berlin and Stuttgart, • Fundación María Cristina Masaveu • Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina • University of North Carolina, Charlottte, Spain • Alexander Calder Foundation Germany Peterson, Oviedo, Spain Sofía, Madrid, Spain North Carolina, USA • Creu de Sant Jordi Saché, France • Cafesjian Museum Foundation, Yerevan, • Galeria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea • Museo Würth La Rioja, Logroño, Spain • University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Barcelona, Spain Armenia Palazzo Forti, Verona, Italy • Museu d’Art Contemporari de Barcelona, Pennsylvania, USA 1993 • Cassino Museo Arte Contemporanea, • Gannett USA TODAY Collection, McLean, Barcelona, Spain • University of Shizuoka for Culture and Art, 2011 • Awarded Chevalier des Arts et Lettres Cassino, Italy Virginia, USA • Museu Es Baluard. Palma de Mallorca, Spain Hamamatsu, Japan • Premi GAC 2011 Ministry of Culture, Paris, France • Centre de Cultura Sa Nostra, Palma • Giuliano Gori Collection, San Tomato • Museum Marugame Hirai, Marugame, • Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, Association of Catalonian Galleries Award, de Mallorca, Spain di Pistoia, Italy Japan Florida, USA Barcelona, Spain

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