Jaume Plensa has conceived this new exhibition as a silent conversation. In the first part of the gallery, three heads of young girls, some three metres high, stand on the floor. Originally carved from tree trunks then cast in bronze, the elongation of the faces is much more pronounced than in other of the artist’s works, visible in places such as the Perez Museum, Miami, the Seattle Museum, the city of Bordeaux and elsewhere. The anamorphosis is captivating. Opposite these three figures, who have their eyes closed, in the other part of the gallery, a portrait of a young girl, also cast in bronze, is positioned in the centre of the room. It is suspended from the ceiling, and a hand, placed in front of the mouth, the index finger raised, invites silence. These four sculptures bear the names of the young girls of whom they are the portrait (Julia, Laura, Wilsis, Minna) but the facial features have been so elongated as to become unrecognisable, thus taking on a universal dimension. Jaume Plensa, a sculptor and artist born in 1955 in Barcelona, has exhibited this year in a number of institutions, such as the MACBA in Barcelona, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Beelden Aan Zee Museum in the Netherlands and the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. A number of his sculptures have recently been installed in public spaces: Plaza Colon in Madrid, the Musée de Beaux-Arts in Caen, the Montserrat monastery near Barcelona, the Rockefeller Center, New York and soon in the courtyard of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
