MMoCA Newsletter, Winter 2018

EXHIBITIONS
JAUME PLENSA: TALKING CONTINENTS
State Street Gallery • Dec 2, 2017–Apr 15, 2018
Internationally celebrated artist Jaume Plensa is known for
his poetic approach to sculpture. He produces works of
art that evoke silence and inward reflection, engaging in a
creative practice informed by his deep interest in the physical
manifestation of spiritual energy. On view in the museum’s
State Street Gallery December 2, 2017–April 15, 2018, Jaume
Plensa: Talking Continents is an enveloping installation of
suspended steel forms that transcend their own physical
weight and volume, and instead convey lightness, translucence,
and fluidity. In keeping with the artist’s concept of
sculpture as the spiritualization of matter, this floating body
of work transforms the gallery into a space for contemplation.
Plensa uses the human figure as a universal symbol, as
a way to break through cultural barriers that separate and
divide. For instance, the two monolithic towers central to
his famous public artwork Crown Fountain (2004), located
in Chicago’s Millennium Park, function as video screens for
moving-image portraits of 1,000 Chicago residents. Rotating
every few minutes, the portraits illustrate the diversity of the
city while also reflecting on our fundamental commonalities
as expressed through the body.
In addition to his interest in the human figure, Plensa
finds inspiration in language, and often includes literary
phrases, words, or simply letters in his works of art. Like generations
of artists before him, Plensa’s use of text calls attention
to language as a system of shapes that has the power
to mediate—or confuse—our understanding of the world.
The nineteen sculptural elements that comprise Talking
Continents are made entirely from die-cut steel letters from
eight different alphabets. Refusing to come together as words,
the letters instead exist as abstract symbols which coalesce
as a dreamy archipelago of cloud-like forms. As such, the
installation suggests a breakdown in communication, or a
dissolution of meaning, while at the same time embodying
the very components needed to construct words and create
meaning—the building blocks for cultural understanding.
Talking Continents thus brings us into a space of potential.
For Plensa, his multilingual sculptures represent islands
or countries; their alphabetic diversity operating as a metaphor
for our multicultural world. With human figures seated
atop five of the largest orbs, Talking Continents offers a
poetic vision of the most populated continents in conversation
with each other. A firm believer that art has the capacity
to transform our lives, Plensa asks us to consider the ways in
which we are linked together as a collective humanity, and
how global interconnectedness and communication can be
a path to universal tolerance and acceptance.
Jaume Plensa was born in Barcelona, Spain, where he
currently lives and works. In addition to numerous international
solo exhibitions, the artist has large-scale works
installed in public spaces and sculpture gardens worldwide,
from Chicago’s Millennium Park to Japan’s Ogijima Island.
Plensa is represented by Galerie Lelong & Co., New York and
Paris; and the Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago.
Generous funding for Jaume Plensa: Talking Continents
has been provided by the David and Paula Kraemer Fund;
Ellen Rosner and Paul J. Reckwerdt; Mary Ellyn and Joe
Sensenbrenner; Peggy and Tom Pyle; Gina and Michael
Carter; National Guardian Life Insurance; Lynda and
Charles Clark; Dynee and Barney Sheafor; Sara Guyer and
Scott Straus; Karen and Craig Christianson; RSM; Wisconsin
Public Radio; a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board
with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National
Endowment for the Arts; and MMoCA Volunteers.
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