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Lot Essay
Jaume Plensa’s Tel Aviv Man VIII, 2005 presents an otherworldly portrait of an arrested dematerialisation. In the ghostly figure, illegible steel letters coalesce into arms, a torso and a sombre face; the rest of his body melts into the ether. Although understandably durable, the intertwined and overlapping characters appear delicate and fragile, a diaphanous skin for a hollow being. Simultaneously corporeal and insubstantial, he lacks any distinguishing expression or feature, yet an intense humanity is nevertheless expressed. Tel Aviv Man VIII is part of a larger series of sculptures and installations that use letters to shape a skeletal silhouette; in 2017, one of Plensa’s figures was installed in London’s Regent’s Park as part of the Frieze Sculpture exhibition. Plensa is currently the subject of several monographic exhibitions which have travelled to institutions including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow.
Plensa has long seen text as a material element worthy of its own manipulation: through words, whole histories and civilisations are established, codified and remembered. As the artist himself noted, ‘I loved the physical aspect of text. I remember leafing through books and being puzzled that while I was looking at one page, the previous page had already disappeared although it had just become part of me. I dreamed about transforming letters into something physical. In my works, words and letters are lent weight and volume. In this way they endure and don’t vanish’ (J. Plensa quoted in M. Stoeber, ‘Transforming Energy’, Sculpture Magazine, March 2006, p. 40). This sense of duality marks Plensa’s sculptures in which form and gesture remain irresolvable. The letters grow into beings that can never be completely comprehended, yet these inherent and irreconcilable tensions are enchanting. Certainly, Tel Aviv Man VIII is a play of opposites, at once open, abstract, vulnerable and resilient, and in these contradictions, a strength is revealed.
Plensa has long seen text as a material element worthy of its own manipulation: through words, whole histories and civilisations are established, codified and remembered. As the artist himself noted, ‘I loved the physical aspect of text. I remember leafing through books and being puzzled that while I was looking at one page, the previous page had already disappeared although it had just become part of me. I dreamed about transforming letters into something physical. In my works, words and letters are lent weight and volume. In this way they endure and don’t vanish’ (J. Plensa quoted in M. Stoeber, ‘Transforming Energy’, Sculpture Magazine, March 2006, p. 40). This sense of duality marks Plensa’s sculptures in which form and gesture remain irresolvable. The letters grow into beings that can never be completely comprehended, yet these inherent and irreconcilable tensions are enchanting. Certainly, Tel Aviv Man VIII is a play of opposites, at once open, abstract, vulnerable and resilient, and in these contradictions, a strength is revealed.