News reports about a year ago confirmed that North America’s largest natural gas producer, Encana, was commissioning Jaume Plensa to build a major sculpture for the foot of The Bow, the company’s new office headquarters in Calgary.
While the designs for the public artwork are yet to be released to the public, we figured we would post a few of our favorite pieces by Jaume to help generate some excitement for the world class art that is on the way.
The “Crown Fountain” in Chicago’s Millennium park is one of Jaume’s most famous works. The work is an interactive combination of public art and video sculpture that was unveiled in July of 2004. The fountain has two 15 meter glass brick towers housing LED screens that display faces of Chicago residents as well as natural scenes. During the warmer months, the faces in the towers pucker up and “spit” a jet of water out onto a black granite reflecting pool between the two towers, while water intermittently cascades down the structures.
“Dream” in Saint Helens, UK is one of Jaume’s most recent unveilings; a massive 20 meter tall, 500 ton sculpture of the face of a girl who is deep in meditation. The face has been elongated like a Modigliani sculpture and with the vast horizon and clouds that’s pass by she appears to be almost weightless. The sculpture was constructed by assembling precast pieces of concrete and Spanish dolomite aggregate (a particularly pure white marble). The project was funded through a competition by the Arts Council of England and Channel 4 wherein they accepted applications from over 1400 people who said they wanted public art for their community. The sculpture grew from consultations between Jaume and a group of local ex-miners who knew that they wanted a forward looking piece of modern art.
“Conversation in Nice” in Place Messina Nice is another of my favorite works by Jaume Plensa. The installation consists of seven resin statues that sit up over 10 meters high on steel posts. During the day the statues are white; however, at night they glow an array of different colors as they are lit from within with color changing bulbs. The seven statues represent the seven continents. The way the statues smoothly flow from color to color at night is intended to represent the interaction between the communities that make our society and to create a dialogue between the figures themselves and passersby.
“Nomade” is an 8 meter tall sculpture in the form of a man seated, cradling his legs. When placed adjacent to water, the sculpture recalls a man contemplating the sea. The sculpture is made from latticed letters and is fully penetrable, inviting viewers to interact with it both inside and out. In reference to this piece and other pieces that invite the viewer inside, Jaume has said that “A house is a body in the sense of it being a place to be. And when someone enters one of my houses, he or she furnishes them with a soul. The piece is not complete until someone enters it.”
“Breathing” is a light sculpture in the form of a listening glass atop the BBC’s broadcasting house complex. Made from steel and glass, the sculpture emits a light beam 1km into the sky for 30 minutes to coincide with the BBC News at Ten. In 2005 the sculpture was dedicated by the incumbent Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, as a memorial to journalists killed whilst undertaking their work.
It reads:
life turns and turns on the crystal glass
breathing in our body
silence is a voice, our voice
silence is a body, our body
life turns and turns on the crystal glass
breathing in our body
I invite you to breathe
I invite you to listen to the silence
“World Voices” is a specially commissioned centerpiece for the lobby of the Burj Dubai (standing at over 800 meters tall, the Burj is the worlds tallest building). World Voices is composed of 196 cymbals that represent the 196 countries of the world – symbolic to Burj Dubai being a collaboration of people from across the globe. Cast in bronze and brass alloy and plated with 18-carat gold, the cymbals are horizontally suspended on titanium rods anchored at the bottom of two pools, symbolizing reeds in a lake. Finished by hand, the cymbals create a distinct timbre as they are struck by dripping water, which Jaume compared to the sound of water falling on leaves.
Below are a few other pictures of Jaume’s work from Flickr that we are fond of:
Nice collection!
I like Plensa a lot. Was happy to be able to shoot “We” in Prague a few month ago, it’s one of his statues with perfect lighting, that really pops at night.
Happy to see you included my image above
[...] new corporate headquarters for Encana. The foot of the tower will feature two public art pieces by Jaume Plensa, who created the Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park, which is [...]