Arrive Magazine - July/August, 2011

First Class
TRENDSETTERS
JAUME The renowned Spanish sculptor
PLENSA
Left:
Jaume Plensa.
Far left:
Echo, now
“reflecting”
in Madison
Square Park.
finally graces New York City with Echo
Sculptor Jaume Plensa traces his view of sculpture to his
Mediterranean heritage, to growing up in an environ- ment rich with books and poetry, and to a persistent memory connected with the piano his father played. In a career that spans more than 30 years, Plensa’s New York City, in Madison Square Park. The work will remain in the park until the middle of August. two seconds have this kind of feedback—boom—and rior ... I’ll be very happy,” he says of the piece. cursed by Zeus to no longer be able to speak her own words but only the words of those around her, Plensa time is so noisy in terms of message and information.” of the defining maladies of our time. “It’s very peaceful,” says Plensa. “That for me was crossed paths of these people [who are] always very busy.” — Eric Wybenga

“It was an upright piano with two sliding doors in the
bottom,” he recalls, “and I would hide myself [in there]
when I was a very little kid. I never forgot the vibrations.”
creations have expanded their vibrations into prominent
public spaces from Tokyo to Dubai to Chicago’s Millen-
nium Park, where his Crown Fountain is a beloved mod-
ernist landmark. Now he brings his vision to Manhattan,
where he recently unveiled Echo, his first public work for
Standing 44 feet tall, this fiberglass-reinforced plastic
sculpture with marble gel coat reflects the scale of the
surrounding city. But the image it presents—the head
of a girl, modeled on the 9-year-old daughter of a restau-
rateur near Plensa’s home in Barcelona—may suggest a
more interior space to those passing through the park.

This is just as Plensa intends; not only to create beauty
but also to get us “to think a little bit about ourselves.”
“If only some people walking in front of the piece for
immediately could imagine something inside, more inte-
The title can be seen as a commentary on exterior and
interior reflection. But Echo, says Plensa, also has a con-
nection to the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, from
which the word derives. In this ancient story of a nymph
sees a metaphor for the world today, where, as he puts it,
“we don’t know anymore if we are talking with our own
words or with the words of somebody else, because our
In Echo then, and in its oasis-like urban park setting,
one might find both diagnosis and potential cure for one
very important. To produce a certain quietness ... in the