Jaume Plensa Wins Velázquez Visual Arts Prize 2013

Galerie Lelong is pleased to announce that Jaume Plensa has received the Velázquez Visual Arts Prize 2013 from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain. The jury awarded the prize to Plensa for "the coherence of a career in which he has thoroughly reinvented the plastic language of sculpture, integrating poetry and conceptualization in designs of great aesthetic intensity." The prize was established in 2002 by the Spanish Culture Ministry to reward the achievements of artists in the visual arts. Plensa also recently received Spain's National Award for Graphic Arts (2013) and National Award for Plastic Arts (2012).

Plensa has presented major solo exhibitions at numerous museums including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, United Kingdom; Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris; Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany; Institut Valencia d'Art Moderne, Valencia; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI; The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX; and Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland.

A solo exhibition of Plensa's work, Talking Continents, is currently on view at Galerie Lelong, featuring an immersive installation of new stainless steel sculptures, suspended cast paper heads, and recent drawings. Storm (2013), a stainless steel sculpture formed from the alphabets of many languages will be on view in Galerie Lelong's booth at Art Basel Miami Beach from December 5 - 8, 2013. Earlier this year Plensa presented eleven large sculptures throughout public spaces in Bordeaux, France for the exhibition Jaume Plensa in Bordeaux. In 2014 recent works by the artist will be on view in Chicago to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Millennium Park, home of Plensa's famed Crown Fountain.