JAUME PLENSA

The titles of the three portraits—Remote (Yolandita), Serene (Ita), and Ethereal (Martina)— express an enduring tension in Plensa’s work, the space between the universal and the individual. While the foundational images in his portrait works come from specific figures from his community in Barcelona, the forms pull away from those individualities and move toward a more universal collective when elongated and monumentally scaled. At over two meters tall each, the sculpture installation offers a space of stillness and contemplation through which the viewer can pass.

Alongside, and as a counterpart to, his sculptural practice, Plensa has long pursued a method of drawing that is site-specific, immediate, and spontaneous. Drawn directly on the wall, Plensa’s charcoal portraits expand freely, responding to the architecture of each unique environment. The mural-sized drawings in Remote, Serene, Ethereal offer a two-dimensional echo of the three-dimensional sculptures, surrounding them in space.

The gallery show follows Plensa’s celebrated career survey A New Humanism, which opened at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, MI, and traveled to the Denver Botanic Gardens, and is concurrent to his solo show Invisible at the Museum Küppersmühle in Duisburg, Germany.

Jaume Plensa: Remote, Serene, Ethereal opens at GRAY New York with a public reception for the artist from 6-8 PM on September 23 and will remain on view through December 19, 2026.