Jaume Plensa

JAUME PLENSA (Barcelona, 1955).
“Self Portrait as Elias Canetti, I,” 2009.
Embossed print on washi paper. E.A. edition.
Signed and numbered.
Reference: Galerie Lelong. Printed by Virgili Barbarà.
Measurements: 77 x 52 cm.

Here, Jaume Plensa distills some of the essential elements of his artistic language: the word, the body, silence, and human presence understood as inner space. The figure is reduced to a black silhouette, with an almost childlike or archetypal profile, situated at the bottom of the paper. He carries bags and casts a long shadow, as if he were a traveler paused in a moment of waiting or transit.

The vertical text—“The blind man as a traveler”—introduces a literary and philosophical dimension that connects to the title and the reference to Elias Canetti. Plensa does not present a conventional portrait here, but rather a symbolic self-representation: the artist identifies with the figure of the blind traveler, one who moves forward guided by memory, intuition, and inner experience. The image, with its great formal austerity, transforms the emptiness of the washi paper into a space of resonance and contemplation.

The embossing lends a subtle, almost invisible presence that is revealed only by light and a careful gaze. This tension between the visible and the latent is highly characteristic of Plensa, whose work transforms letters, bodies, and shadows into signs of thought.

Jaume Plensa is one of Spain’s most internationally renowned sculptors. His public works can be found in cities such as Chicago, New York, Nice, London, Seoul, and Tokyo, and his work is represented in institutions such as the Reina Sofía Museum, MACBA, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.