Jaume Plensa

JAUME PLENSA (Barcelona, 1955).
"My private sex", 1995.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed and dated.
It has a tear in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 59 x 51 cm.

In the nineties, Jaume Plensa's creation gained momentum in the use of words, independently (and even floating in the void) or linked to a sculptural object. In addition to sculptural visual poems, he created series on napkins dedicated to gastronomy or eroticism. In this work, "My private sex" is written next to the schematic drawing of a vagina, resolved in an almost pictographic way. Plensa explores the relationship between calligraphy, identity, memory and the plastic potential of letters.

Jaume Plensa studied at the Escuela de La Llotja and the Superior de Bellas Artes de Sant Jordi, both in Barcelona. He excelled in sculpture, drawing and engraving. His work focuses on the relationship between man and his environment, often questioning the role of art in society and the position of the artist. He currently lives in Paris, and was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Plensa began his career working with wrought iron mixed with polyester. Between 1983 and 1984 he began to mold iron with the casting technique, and developed a sculptural concept based on zoomorphic elements. His work gradually evolved, and he is now considered a precursor of Spanish neo-expressionism. In the nineties he introduced modifications in his work, both materially and formally, and began to use different materials such as scrap metal, polyester and resins. During these years he elaborated series of walls, doors and architectural constructions, seeking to give space an absolute protagonism. Between 1999 and 2003 Plensa became one of the pillars of world scenography, reinterpreting with "La Fura dels Baus" four classical operas by Falla, Debussy, Berlioz and Mozart, and alone a contemporary theatrical production, "La pareti della solitudine", by Ben Jelloun. He has had solo and group exhibitions all over the world, including a retrospective at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 2000. In June 2008 he inaugurated in London, at the BBC headquarters, his work "Breathing", a monument dedicated to journalists killed in the exercise of their profession. Throughout his career he has received numerous distinctions, such as the Medal of the Knights of Arts and Letters in 1993, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, or the National Prize for Plastic Arts in 1997, from the Generalitat of Catalonia. Considered one of the leading representatives of the new Spanish art of expressionist tendency, his work is present in the best national and international galleries and art fairs, as well as in the main museums of Europe and the United States, such as the MOMA in New York, the Kemper in Kansas, the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Palazzo Forti in Verona, the MACBA or the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.