Jaume Plensa

JAUME PLENSA (Barcelona, 1955).
"Domestic Propensities" II (Power of Will), 2002.
Lithograph, watercolor, and collage on Japanese paper. Print no. 4/50.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Measurements: 62.5 x 47.5 cm.
"Domestic Propensities II (Power of Will)" is part of the "Domestic Propensities" suite, created by Jaume Plensa in 2002 and consisting of five works: "Love of Home," "Parental Love," "Power of Will," "Verbal Memory," and "Moral and Religious Sentiments." The series explores different dimensions of human behavior, emotions, and consciousness. In this work, Plensa combines the depiction of a human eye with words and expressions linked to the individual’s impulses and faculties. The gaze serves as a central element of his artistic language: the eye is simultaneously an organ of perception and a symbol of consciousness, introspection, and inner experience. The presence of *Power of Will* specifically introduces the idea of the will as a faculty capable of ordering or directing various human impulses.
Jaume Plensa is one of the Spanish artists with the greatest international prominence in recent decades. He trained at the Escola de la Llotja and later at the Escola Superior de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona. Since the 1980s, Plensa has lived and worked in Berlin, Brussels, England, France, and the United States, as well as in Barcelona. He has also been actively involved in teaching: he was a professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and has regularly served as a visiting professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Notable among his institutional exhibitions are those held at the Fundació Joan Miró, the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Museo Reina Sofía, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and the MACBA.His major awards include the National Prize for Visual Arts of Catalonia, the National Prize for Visual Arts of Spain (2012), the Velázquez Prize for the Visual Arts (2013), and the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts (2021).
His work is included in major international collections, including those of the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, MoMA in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Art Institute of Chicago, and MACBA in Barcelona.