Jaume Plensa

“Jerusalem” Series
Es Baluard Museu d’Art | 2006
Espacio Cultural El Tanque | 2009

For this FSA feature, we highlight Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) and his “Jerusalem” Series exhibited in 2006 at the Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani, and 2009 at the Espacio Cultural El Tanque, both in Spain. Plensa’s sculptures “Doors of Jerusalem I, II, & III” are three sitting figures made from polyester resin, emitting a soft, warm glow from within. Embossed on their bodies are passages from Song of Solomon (otherwise known as the Song of Songs), naming the eight gates to walled city of Jerusalem (New, Herod, Damascus, Golden {two doors: Gate of Repentance and Gate of Mercy}, Lions, Jaffa, Zion, and Dung). Song of Songs is a collection of erotic love poems narrating the role of Lover and Beloved, Bride and Bridegroom, between King Solomon and his lover, the Shulammite. This sensuous wedding song is known to be recited during Passover as an allegory of God and the Jewish people, and by Christians as symbolic of Christ and the Church. 

 

Writes Alexandra Jean Davison on these sculptures in her ArtWay article “Passion for the Light”: “In the Song of Songs, a woman tirelessly crosses this wall looking for her love.

Writes Alexandra Jean Davison on these sculptures in her ArtWay article “Passion for the Light”: “In the Song of Songs, a woman tirelessly crosses this wall looking for her love. She dreams and imagines love is like a door in the wall. Perhaps this wall is another metaphor of the body and the doors another metaphor of the soul. Dream and desire are fused in the prison of the heart […] For Plensa, sculpture has a profound ability to convey spirituality in the material, the connection between the body, mind, and soul. He believes that time, text, and the body are hosts for memory and imagination. The figure’s arms – filled with Scripture – are wrapped around the drawn knees, his whole being intent on the light within as the gates of Jerusalem and the words of the Bride’s desire surround him.” 

For his “Jerusalem” exhibition in the Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern I Contemporani, Plensa installed 18 gongs engraved with selections from the Song of Songs, inviting “the spectator to participate in his poetical and sensorial experience […] strolling amidst the magical shadows and the brilliant reflections of the gongs, the visitor can make them vibrate, filling the beauty of the space with ancestral sounds. Then one feels involved in a reflexive process, in which time appears to have stopped. With this creation […] artistic execution is accompanied by a desire to surpass the frontiers of reality in order to transport us into the spiritual sphere” (Excerpt from exhibition statement).

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Selected Images

Jaume Plensa, “Doors of Jerusalem I, II, & III,” 2006. Resin and mixed media installation, North Carolina Museum of Art.

Jaume Plensa, “Doors of Jerusalem I, II, & III,” 2006. Resin and mixed media installation, North Carolina Museum of Art, three figures.

Jaume Plensa, “Doors of Jerusalem I, II, & III,” 2006. Resin and mixed media installation, North Carolina Museum of Art.

Jaume Plensa, “Jerusalem," 2006. Bronze and mixed media installation, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern.

Jaume Plensa, “Jerusalem," 2006. Bronze and mixed media installation, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern.

Jaume Plensa “Jerusalem," 2006. Bronze and mixed media installation, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern.

Jaume Plensa, “Jerusalem,” 2006. Bronze, rope, wood and wool, 9 pairs of gongs installation, Espacio Cultural El Tanque.

Jaume Plensa, “Jerusalem,” 2006. Bronze, rope, wood and wool, 9 pairs of gongs installation, Espacio Cultural El Tanque.

Jaume Plensa, “Jerusalem,” 2006. Bronze, rope, wood and wool, 9 pairs of gongs installation, Espacio Cultural El Tanque.

Read

ArtWay | Jaume Plensa, “Doors of Jerusalem”

“Transforming Energy: A Conversation with Jaume Plensa”

 

 

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The Iconic Public Sculpture Art of Jaume Plensa