Jaume Plensa

Jaume Plensa - Art as a mediator between cultures

Jaume Plensa was born on 23 August 1955 in Barcelona, where he studied at the Escola de la Llotja and the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi. He opened his first exhibition in his hometown of Barcelona in 1980 and has been a frequent and welcome guest on the international stage ever since, travelling to Germany, Belgium, France and the USA. His pictorial language is just as international as his exhibition activities: Jaume Plensa repeatedly draws on signs from different alphabets, whereby he does not form concrete words and sentences, but rather understands language as a pictorial metaphor. His most important subject, however, is the human body, which he sees as a vessel of the spirit and soul, placed at the centre of his artistic work as a universal symbol. Plensa emphasises the great similarity and kinship of all human cultures and endeavours to demonstrate these similarities in an encouraging way through his art, despite all the apparent differences.

The search for silence and the true self

Jaume Plensa conveys a contemplative atmosphere with his art, and this is entirely intentional: Silence is a central concern for the artist, because in the noisy world of modernity, Plensa is convinced that only inner silence can show people a path to themselves. He often forms his figures from a metallic network of letters and musical notation, a consequence of his ever-present exploration of language and music. Plensa wishes to connect with his audience through his artworks, and he finds the letters to be a suitable medium because, in his eyes, each letter expresses the culture behind it in its individual form and each letter represents a type of memory. Together, the letters serve as a larger body - a body that the artist tries to represent with his sculptures. It is not about expressing a specific message, but about a general state of spiritual upliftment.

A globally acclaimed modernist artist

Jaume Plensa's work follows in the tradition of celebrated Catalan artists such as Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies. He has taught at various universities and institutions in Paris and Chicago, and his large-scale sculptures can be admired in public spaces in the world's major metropolises. Plensa has received prizes and awards from all over the world for his art: in 1993 he was knighted by the French Ministry of Culture with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in 2005 he received an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2009 the Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture in London, in 2013 the Iserlohn Art Prize, and in 2014 an honorary doctorate from the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi.

Jaume Plensa currently lives and works in Barcelona.