Jaume Plensa

(Spanish, born 1955)

Sitting Tattoo IV
2006

Footnotes

Provenance
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2006


"Art many times is just a beautiful excuse to transform the way that you look at the reality around you, and it's also the idea of communication, building bridges, putting people in touch with one another." - Jaume Plensa

Barcelona-born artist Jaume Plensa is globally renowned for his now iconic seated figures that can be seen in striking monumental sculptures and mesmerizing public installations on several continents. The present sculpture by the artist, Sitting Tattoo IV (2006), elegantly encapsulate the artist's use of the figure, space and text to explore the deep connections of the human experience with language and spirituality - the major recurring themes of his practice.

Stemming from the artist's quintessential Poets series, the figure sits peacefully stable and compactly folded in on themselves. Layered with this solidity, Plensa is masterful in his ability to combine concrete physicality with light and space to transform both the form itself and its environment. Lit from within by a series of changing colors, the figure and everything around it is illuminated in glowing hues. The form is almost divine in appearance - both permanent and ephemeral, strong and fragile, complex and simple - inviting a dialogue between body and soul. Through this spectacular sculpture the artist imparts the wonder of the dynamic beauty of humanity in harmony.

Jaume Plensa's works are exhibited internationally, and his many public sculptures are on view the world over, including the beloved Crown Fountain (2004), in Chicago's Millennium Park. Sculptures from the Tattoo series and related resin works have been exhibited at the Massachusetts University, Amherst, in 2004; Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany in 2005; Germany's Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2006; MAMAC–Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice 2007 – 2008; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield in 2011; Art Public-Art Basel, Miami in 2012; and at Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki in 2012. Additionally, a seven-part public commission from this body of work entitled Conversation À Nice (2007), is installed in Place Masséna, Nice, France.

Plensa has received numerous awards, including the Medaille de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture in 1993, and the Government of Catalonia's National Prize for Fine Art in 1997. In 2005, he was invested Doctor Honoris Causa by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In Spain, he received the National Prize for Fine Art in 2012, the prestigious Velázquez Prize for the Arts in 2013 and he was awarded Honorary Doctorate of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2018.

The present work was acquired by prominent American collector and philanthropist Gerard L. Cafesjian, and remained in his Estate's collection until now. Born in 1925 in Brooklyn to Armenian immigrant parents, Mr. Cafesjian became a highly successful editor at West Publishing - a firm specialising in legal materials - and spearheaded the launch of the annual Art and the Law exhibition, for which he received the prestigious Business in the Arts Award. Mr. Cafesjian's passion for collecting began with a childhood fascination with geology and gemstones, which later branched into fine art. Over the years, he patroned and developed personal relationships with world-renowned sculptors and ultimately assembled an impressive collection of both lapidary and fine works of art.

Upon his retirement, Mr. Cafesjian committed his time to art and charity, as he founded the Cafesijan Family Foundation to support mostly Armenian causes. He founded the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona in 1999, and, in the early 2000s, he set his sights on an enormous, unfinished and crumbling Soviet structure in Armenia's capital city as the site for a private museum. The building's ambitious renovation and expansion resulted in the creation of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts, which, upon its inauguration in 2009, was touted by the New York Times as being a modern-day 'Hanging Gardens of Armenia' and is best known for its world-class sculpture garden.