First Barcelona exhibit on sculptor Plensa in decades almost open

Famous Catalan sculptor Jaume Plensa is back in his hometown of Barcelona, after 23 years without exhibits in the city's museums.

From this Saturday, Barcelona's Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) will show some 20 of his works, which will enable visitors to follow his work during the past three decades.  

Some of the artist's iconic installations shaped like human heads are among the pieces on display.

The originality of these heads resides in the fact that they are based on a scanned 3D picture. Depending on how you look at them, they appear as absolutely flat, or 3D –with correct proportions.

But the MACBA exhibit, open until April 22, 2019, offers much more.

As he has told the Catalan News Agency, the pieces on display have the "hesitation and question" as a common thread.

According to him, visitors will be able to "discover" his intimate and less famous side, that is, the "studio work" behind his pieces. 

Plensa, from Barcelona to the world

Jaume Plensa was born in 1955 in Barcelona, where he also held his first exhibition in 1980. Since then, he’s lived and worked in Germany, Belgium, England, France, and the United States – but is back to calling the Catalan capital his home. He’s taught at the École Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In Barcelona, one can find one of his iconic heads, the piece 'Carmen,' outside of the modernist Palau de la Música, but Plensa’s work is scattered worldwide. Most notable are the animated faces of the Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennial Park, as well as the installation ‘Breathe’ atop the BBC Broadcasting House in London.