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Jaume Plensa, new member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts
The artist claims, with a profound and committed discourse, the essential role of art in the face of the challenges of the present.
Yesterday, May 11, Jaume Plensa was named a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. The Barcelona sculptor has been elected as academic number 37 and took advantage of his speech to share some of the ideas that have accompanied him throughout his career. In a speech entitled From me to us, Plensa stressed the fundamental role that art can play in today's society, highlighting the need for artists not to remain on the sidelines of the reality that surrounds them. He urged creators to take risks and to fully commit themselves, not only to their work, but also to the way it relates to public space, the cultural environment and collective thought.
Plensa stressed the need to adopt a critical perspective in the face of a world marked by social and environmental imbalances. “Our society anonymously coexists with poverty, hunger, violence or pain: wars everywhere, collective displacements, destruction of nature, disinformation. Perhaps for all this, I think that, at the present time, art is more necessary than ever,” he stated during his speech. The artist also thanked the people who endorsed his candidacy, the sculptor Juan Bordes and the professors Simón Marchán and Víctor Nieto, for their trust, highlighting their careers and recognizing them as an incentive for his future commitment to the institution. He also dedicated a few words to his predecessor, the sculptor Julio López, whom he replaces in the position.
Jaume Plensa durant la presa de possessió de la medalla 37 com a acadèmic de la Reial Acadèmia de Belles Arts de Sant Fernando. Foto: Europa Press
With a career spanning over four decades, Plensa has made his way through multiple forms of expression. Beyond the large-scale sculptures that often occupy urban spaces, he has also worked on stage projects for opera and has developed a more intimate production that includes drawings, graphic work and artist's books. His way of understanding art involves constant experimentation with materials and formats: from iron and bronze to glass, light or even sound and water. Already in the eighties he began to explore these combinations, looking for new ways to connect with the public and the architectural landscape.
Song of Songs, Jaume Plensa (2005). CAC-Centre d'Art Contemporani, Màlaga
Born in Barcelona in 1955, he had his first solo exhibition in 1980. Over the years, he has collaborated with institutions around the world and taught at both the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, where he has often returned as a guest professor. His work can be found in public spaces in cities such as Seoul, Chicago, Paris and Barcelona, among many others, and he often seeks to integrate with the environment rather than stand out above it, understanding sculpture as part of the landscape, rather than as an autonomous object.
His work has been recognized with several awards, such as the Medal of the Knights of Arts and Letters of France, the Atelier Calderel Foundation Award, the National Prize for Visual Arts of the Generalitat of Catalonia or the Velázquez Prize, among others. This new step within the Royal Academy of Fine Arts adds to a solid career full of collaborations with institutions around the world. Plensa thus continues a career that does not stop, marked by constant research and the desire to open windows between art and the world.
Self-portrait as Banquo, Jaume Plensa (2000)
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