JAUME PLENSA

b. 1955 in Barcelona, Spain

Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain

 

Jaume Plensa is one of the world's foremost sculptors working in the public space, with over 30 projects spanning the globe in such cities as Chicago, Dubai, London, Liverpool, Nice, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver.

 

Jaume Plensa has received numerous national and international awards, including the Medaille de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, in 1993, and the Government of Catalonia’s National Prize for Fine Art in 1997. In 2005, he was invested Doctor Honoris Causa by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In Spain, he received the National Prize for Fine Art in 2012, the prestigious Velázquez Prize for the Arts in 2013 and he was awarded Honorary Doctorate of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2018.

 

Over the past 25 years, Jaume Plensa has produced a rich body of work in the studio and the public realm. By combining conventional sculptural materials (glass, steel, bronze, aluminium) with more unconventional media (water, light, sound, video), and frequently incorporating text, Plensa creates hybrid works of intricate energy and psychology. From his delicately textured, intimate works on paper—like his 2005-06 series of ethnographic portraits that resemble worn, 19th century photographs—to monumental outdoor sculptures like Nomade (2007).

 

A very significant part of Plensa’s work is in the field of sculpture in the public space. Installed in several cities in Spain, France, Japan, England, Korea, Germany, Canada, USA, etc.,

 

The Crown Fountain, which was unveiled in Chicago’s Millennium Park in 2004, is one of Plensa’s largest projects and, without doubt, one of the most brilliant. The work led to many commissions, adding to the list of works by Jaume Plensa in public spaces, right up to the most recent, Julia (2018) in Madrid, Voices (2018) in 30 Hudson Yards, New York, USA and Dreaming (2017) in Toronto’s Richmond Adelaide Centre installed in 2020.

 

Plensa's work is invested in evoking emotion and stimulating intellectual engagement. By posing conceptual dualities in his work (inside/outside, front/back, light/dark), Plensa seeks to connect with his viewers on an intuitive level. Often, the viewer participation, or the object/viewer relationship, is what completes Plensa's work.

 

Jaume Plensa has won many prizes and citations, including the Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture, which the artist received in London in 2009 for his work Dream. With Together, Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale, Basilica San Giorgio Maggiore, Jaume Plensa obtained the Global Fine Art Award for the Best Public Outdoor Installation in 2015.

 

Jaume Plensa has had solo exhibitions at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Spain; the Musée Picasso, Antibes, France; the Arts Club of Chicago; Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid and Galerie National du Jeu de Paume, Paris among many others. His latest museum exhibitions have been Invisibles at Palacio de Cristal–Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, at the MACBA in Barcelona which travelled to the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, Russia, and at the Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague, Netherlands.