Jaume Plensa: "I invite you to dream of Barcelona."

BarcelonaJaume Plensa lamented for a long time that he was loved more around the world than in Barcelona. Longer ago, a young Czech man named Plzenka arrived in the walnut-covered town of Algerri, fell in love with it, and eventually settled there, until at some point Plzenka became Plensa. This afternoon, the artist began his acceptance speech for the Gold Medal for Cultural Merit, the highest cultural award given by Barcelona City Council, by speaking of his origins. "In those distant times, babies like me arrived from Paris flying over the Pyrenees. I've always thought that my landing on Noguera Pallaresa Street in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona was very similar to the arrival of my beloved ancestor from Pilsen to Algerri. settled all over the world, from New York to Tokyo, via London, Madrid, Chicago, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Boston, Liverpool, Bonn, Melbourne, Montreal, Taipei and so many other cities, are united by "bridges and invisible ties."

As Plensa entered the Saló de Cent accompanied by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, both escorted by two urban guards in full dress uniform, the Plaça Sant Jaume began to fill with those attending a demonstration "against the Israeli genocide in Pales. Although Plensa did not speak explicitly, he did say that "our society coexists anonymously with poverty, hunger, violence, or pain, wars and more wars, collective displacement, the destruction of nature, misinformation." "I firmly believe that at this time, art is more necessary than ever and that we, the creators, must commit and take risks with all our hearts in collaboration with all social agents to find the certainty that allows us to define a new perception of common spaces, which will help us crystallize society's intense desire for the future."

A broad representation of the worlds of politics and culture

The event was attended by numerous political representatives, including Josep Rull, Speaker of the Parliament; Sonia Hernández Almodóvar, Regional Minister of Culture; Lourdes Borrell, Mayor of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, where Plensa has his studio; and Joan Basagañas, Mayor of Sant Just Desvern, where the artist lives with his wife and right-hand woman, Laura Medina. From the arts, the sculptor was accompanied by Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of the MACBA, and Imma Prieto, Director of the Museu Tàpies. Also present were Rosa Maria Malet, former Director of the Joan Miró Foundation, where Plensa held one of his first major exhibitions; gallery owners Carles Taché and Carlos Duran; Sara Puig, President of the Joan Miró Foundation; and Daniel Giralt-Miracle, critic. Llucià Homs, co-founder of the Loop video art festival and the Talking Galleries symposium, and the parish priest of the UPC, Daniel Crespo. And the music section was attended by two senior officials from the Liceu, whose doors are made by Plensa: the president, Salvador Alemany, and the general director, Valentí Oviedo. The commentary was given by writer Monika Zgustová, who revealed the impact the sculptor's work had on her: "Thanks to Jaume Plensa, I finally understood that each person is not only unique, but sacred," she said.

Plensa recalled how an old miner from the mining town of St. Helens, where he was installing one of his monumental heads, told him that inside the shaft the light is a "dream", so this afternoon he ventured that perhaps the light of Barcelona "can fill this darkness and bring beauty to people's daily lives, for being the welcoming, pioneering, brave, and silent city that we love and it is a mixed space, a magical and elevated city to which we would always want to return." "I invite you today to dream it. I invite you to look at the light," he concluded.

A negotiation like a love story

As Collboni recalled in the opening speech, Plensa received the Gold Medal with the unanimous approval of all municipal groups. "Plensa's art is essential, marked by the desire to cross the boundaries of reality and enter the spiritual realm. An art that brings us face to face with ourselves, that places us before the mirror in which cities expose themselves," said Collboni, who emphasized the call to introspection in his monumental works. "An art that asks us for silence, as his sculpture does." Water's soul on the banks of the Hudson River, just across from Manhattan. A silence, as Jaume Plensa himself says, against all the echoes and all the noise that sometimes makes us not know if we are speaking with our own ideas or with those of others," the mayor added.

Collboni also explained that, in his previous term as Deputy Mayor for Culture, he mobilized Carmela in front of the Palau de la Música to move to another city. Not only did he succeed, but the sculptor loaned it to the museum for another eight years. In fact, he considers that moment to have marked a turning point in the artist's relationship with his hometown. "What was supposed to start as a negotiation ended up being how to tell a love story between sculpture and the neighborhood of Sant Pere, Santa Caterina, and Ribera, between sculpture, the people of Barcelona, and the city," the mayor explained.