LOEWS Winter-Spring 2011 - (Page 14)

engage Jaume Plensa nomade (2007), CoURTeSY oF The deS moineS aRT CenTeR i loews magazine 14 The renowned SpaniSh arTiST’S SculpTureS are ofTen very public STaTemenTS. by abel delgado t’s not the first mental picture to pop up when you think “fountain”: two glass brick towers that face each other in a plaza. Each tower has a screen that constantly shows different city residents smiling, laughing or making faces—until they pucker up. Then water seems to shoot out of their mouths, and anyone standing under one of the towers is sure to get soaked. The playfulness and strong community connection is what made Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain an immediate hit when it was unveiled alabaster houses, you’d hear an amplified recording of Plensa’s blood circulating. You don’t usually expect to get that close to an artist through his or her work, but Plensa wanted the houses to function as a kind of self-portrait that would envelop the audience as they went in. The sculptor’s work earned attention and public art commissions in Europe, but it’s arguable that the Crown Fountain project is what truly raised his profile worldwide. In 2007 Plensa followed up Crown Fountain with Nomade, a literal man of letters displayed in Antibes, France. The artist wanted to show how humans are all “tattooed” with text that reflects our lives. The original Nomade is now at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines, but Plensa created a new version in 2010 for Antibes. Some of his more recent works don’t use text, like The Dream (2009). Plensa created it for St. Helens, a former mining town in England, to symbolize its shift away from the closed mines to a new way of life. The giant alabaster head is simple, depicting a young girl lost in reverie. His most recent public work is called Ogijima’s Soul, a community hall for an island town in Japan. It’s an open building with a roof made up of different letters to symbolize the world’s cultures. As with most of Plensa’s works, public or private, Ogijima’s Soul invites people in to connect with art…and each other. at Chicago’s Millenium Park in 2004. And though he’s a successful gallery artist, Plensa’s most memorable works connect art with the lives of communities. Born in Barcelona in 1955, Plensa has been sculpting since the 1970s. His early works used iron, bronze and copper to illustrate concepts using human forms. Over time, his work took a more abstract turn, using iron concave bricks and other Minimalist-style forms. In the 1990s Plensa’s work turned to large-scale forms like cubicles, containers and furniture, often embossed with bits of text from his favorite books or poems. Examples include a polyester house called Bedroom (1995), Winter Kept Us Warm (1998) and a five-cabin installation called Love Sounds (1998). This work used form, light and an unusual sound: when you went into one of the 

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LOEWS Winter-Spring 2011

Tough Act To Follow
Elite Treats
Jaume Plensa
Graphic Novels Go Mainstream
Hands-On Experience
Natural Lighting
Book VS. Movie: Which was Better
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
In San Diego? Get Out!
Fast Fun in Atlanta
Canada's Cultural Capitals
News and Notes

LOEWS Winter-Spring 2011

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