Jaume Plensa

Jaume Plensa
Spanish, 1955-
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Sculpture Garden
Images courtesy of my honeymoon

So, I greatly apologize, as I do not know the title of this piece (I did some work trying to figure it out but am not up for pulling out all the librarian stops right now). There are many other wonderful works by Jaume Plensa that you can peruse and do to some similarity among works, other titles could give you an idea of what this one could be.

This sculpture is part of a sculpture garden along side one of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts new buildings. I'm always excited to catch site of a Plensa. Even though this one is quite small compared to some of the artist's work on a grander scale, you can give it different kind of personal attention than his larger than life works. I saw my first (knowingly) on a trip to the Frederik Meijer Gardens of Grand Rapids. Check theirs out here. I say knowingly because I had already seen the fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park more than once but never took the time to check out who the artist was. See Crown Fountain. I apologize for that sentence being in italics, blogger won't let me fix it.

I have not given Plensa the time and care he deserves, so please do check out his website, hit Google images and find a Plensa to experience in person!

Horses

Filigree, 1997
Deborah Butterfield

"To say Deborah Butterfield sculpts horses is too simplistic. Using wood, metal and bronze, she constructs, engineers, molds, hammers, pounds, rips and solders her pieces in what can be an epic struggle between artist and unrelenting materials." (artworks mag, 5/13/08)

I love Butterfield's horses. Until recently I was unaware that it is her sole subject. While at first thought this might seem repetitive, once you encounter more than one of her horses, the thought leaves your mind. Her horses are beautifully constructed sculptures. Starting with an armature to which individual pieces of would are attached by wire to create the sculpture, each piece of wood, meticulously marked for its location and is then recreated in bronze. The piece is the reassembled and welded together.

We have one of her horses her at TMA (outdoors in our sculpture garden) and I recently saw one at the Speed Museum of Art in Louisville (the first I've seen that wasn't displayed on the floor, it was hung on a wall in the gallery). While I'm happy to encounter her sculptures anywhere, seeing them outside is the most fitting, they become more imbued with their natural surroundings. Her titles are the names of actual horses. She and her husband live on a 350 acre working horse farm, check out the Art Works Magazine article for more.