Jaume Plensa: Talking Continents
Jaume Plensa presents large-scale sculptures and installations that use language, history, literature and psychology to draw attention to the barriers that separate and divide humanity.
In Talking Continents, Jaume Plensa (Spanish, b. 1955) used stainless steel to create a floating archipelago of 19 cloud-like shapes. The biomorphic forms are made with die-cut letters taken from nine different languages that refuse to come together as words, existing instead as abstract forms, and also arbitrary signs and signifiers. Many of the suspended sculptures appear as orbs or islands, while others include human figures in pensive, vulnerable postures.
The sculptures speak to the diversity of language and culture, but also gesture toward global interconnectedness as a path to tolerance and acceptance. Visitors are encouraged to tap into the artist’s notion of universal understanding by thinking about the ways in which we are linked together as a collective humanity.
About Jaume Plensa
Born in 1955 in Barcelona, Jaume Plensa is one of the world’s foremost sculptors with international exhibitions and over thirty public projects spanning the globe in such cities as Chicago, Dubai, London, Liverpool, Montreal, Nice, San Diego, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Plensa’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums worldwide, including: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2000); The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids (2008); Musée Picasso, Antibes (2010); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2010); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton (2011); Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki (2012); Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville (2015); Max Ernst Museum Brühl, Germany (2016); and the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne Métropole (2017).
Select public installations include: Crown Fountain (Chicago, 2004); Echo (Seattle, 2014); Wonderland (Calgary, 2013); Breathing (London, 2008); Roots (Tokyo, 2014); and Source (Montreal, 2017). Pacific Soul (San Diego) and Dreaming (Toronto) in the fall of 2017. Plensa will be the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Museu d’Art Contemporani in Barcelona in the fall of 2018.