Jaume Plensa
Born in Barcelona in 1955
From 1980 with his first exhibition in Barcelona until today, he has lived and worked in Berlin, Brussels, England, France, USA, and he currently shares his residence between Paris and Barcelona.
He has been a teacher at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and has also been a lecturer at many universities and art institutions. He collaborates as professor invited at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Since 1992 he has obtained various distinctions and awards, both national and international, notably his investiture as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture (Paris, 1993), the National Culture Award for Plastic Arts of the Government of Catalonia (Barcelona, 1997), Honorary Doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 2005), the Mash Award for Public Sculpture (London, 2009), the National Award for Plastic Arts (Madrid, 2012), and most recently, the National Award for Graphic Arts 2013 (Madrid, 2013)
His sculptural work has gone through several stages developed largely with recuperation materials, iron, bronze, cooper, … In 1986, he started a series of cast iron sculptures, then he incorporated light and relief written text. Recently his melting materials have been synthetic resin, glass, alabaster, plastic, light, video and sound. He also has a large production of works on paper and etchings.
Beside his sculptural oeuvre he is collaborating often working on stage design and costumes for opera and theatre productions.