Once again, the gallery is showing the works of Jaume Plensa, after the two previous exhibitions, the first of which was in 2005, where different pieces of graphic work were displayed. The relationship with the artist started when the gallery (then Galería Estiarte) edited a series of lithographs and engravings titled “Anónimos/Anonymous”, where for the first time elongated faces of different races appeared, as if they were candles, printed on Japanese etching paper, where the background was a dry etched text by Shakespeare. At this time, Plensa had just executed what was going to become one of his most emblematic works: the Crown Fountain in Chicago.

Five years later, in 2010, we held the second exhibition: “Obra sobre papel/Work on paper”, with medium and large format drawings. Both exhibitions took place in our previous premises in Calle Almagro. Eight years have passed until Plensa has found the time to return to the gallery, although the collaboration has continued in group exhibitions and with his presence on the Arco stand over these years. This exhibition coincides with the two shows that he currently has in the two most emblematic museums in our country: one at the MACBA in Barcelona and the other at the Reina Sofia Museum in the Glass Palace in the Retiro Park in Madrid, a city where he also has a 12 m high sculpture positioned in the Plaza de Colon, which will remain there for a year, lent to the City Council by the Crisitina Masaveu Foundation. In July, the Engraving Museum in Marbella also devoted an exhibition to his work: “La música gráfica/Graphic music”, which filled the entire museum with prints related to the world of music, which has always been closely linked to his work. The exhibition that we are opening includes sculptures and drawings. Three large-format bronze sculptures; 3 drawings and a stainless steel and marble sculpture, all carried out between 2017 and 2018.

Jaume Plensa was born in Barcelona in 1955. At the age of 18 he moved to Berlin, where he lived, as well as in Brussels, England, France and the USA. He has been a professor at the Ecole Nationale de Beaux Arts in Paris and he regularly cooperates with the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He exhibits in galleries and museums all over Europe, USA and Asia. He has sculptures installed in public spaces in France, Japan, Spain, England, Korea, Germany, Canada, USA, etc. “The Crown Fountain” (2004) in Chicago, is one of the most famous and interesting ones, which has given him important international recognition. It is made up of two 16 m high glass towers, with LED screens, video, water, steel and wood. On the screens a thousand anonymous people appear, who live in the city and from whose mouths the fountain’s water pours, water that forms a lamina, several millimetres thick, which can be easily walked through, in a place for meeting and enjoyment.

The use of materials of very different natures, as well as the presence of sound, water, light in his works gives them a character that allows dialogue between spectators and the artist. The symbols shared become the key to understanding Plansa’s world of sculpture, where poetry is established as an important work instrument with the primary aim of communicating ideas and transmitting them to whoever contemplates them. “The material is just a vehicle. The true material of sculpture involves the ideas. And these ideas are here, they are the energy that radiates from objects, from spaces, from people”, “If we say that art is a magnificent way of asking, its function as a bridge on which others may pass is also important”, in the artist’s own words. Plensa is in the world of poetry and music; if this is not understood, his work cannot be understood.

Over these past two decades, Plensa has received many awards and recognitions, amongst which are the granting of the “Chevallier de L’Order des Arts e des Lettres” by the French Ministry of Culture in 1993. “Premi Nacional de Cultura i d´Arts Plàstiques” from the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1997. The Marshall Prize for Public Sculpture in London, 2009. The National Plastic Art Prize in 2012. The Velázquez Art Prize in 2013, the year when he also received the National Intaglio Prize. The Overall Fine Art Prize for the best public installation at the Venice Biennale in 2015.