Pride Park, Miami Beach

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(NEW YORK / CHICAGO - November 30, 2022) – GRAY is pleased to announce the unveiling of Minna, a monumental sculpture by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, to be revealed on November 30, 2022, at 10 AM in a dedication ceremony. The steel mesh portrait, located in Miami Beach’s Pride Park, explores the concept of the invisible in everyday life. Minna was commissioned as a gift to the City of Miami Beach by philanthropist and businessman Norman Braman, one of the visionaries who helped bring Art Basel to the convention center two decades ago.

“For me, the most important things in life are invisible” Plensa states; such as love, compassion, and hope. Paying homage to that concept, he distances himself from rendering specific individuals and instead lingers upon a sense of humanity made up of steel mesh, drawn in space. This 16-foot-tall portrait evokes a sense of stillness and serenity, despite being situated amidst the bustling urban landscape of Miami Beach. The ethereal sculpture appears to shift in form from every angle, reaching almost total invisibility when the portrait seems to disappear amongst its surroundings. The stainless steel lines delineate the topography of the skin, illustrating the sublimity of the external human form. What remains amidst the subject’s delicate mesh, suggests the intricacies of the obscure aspects of the human body. Plensa evades the need for complete figuration by compelling viewers to use inference to discern facility from the material lines that define the final border between space and emptiness. Minna is the essence of this intervention – the unfinished face traversed by light, reminding viewers that we are all beautiful outside, but even more beautiful inside.

Internationally celebrated Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) is one of the world's foremost sculptors in the public realm with celebrated projects spanning the globe in such cities as Calgary, Chicago, San Diego, Montréal, London, Paris, Dubai, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Over the past 35 years, the artist has produced a multifaceted body of work creating sculpture that speaks to the capacity and beauty of humanity, often bringing people together through the activation of public spaces. Conventional sculptural materials like glass, steel, and bronze blend with unconventional media such as water, light, and sound to create hybrid works of intricate energy, psychological weight, and symbolic richness. Jaume Plensa has had solo museum exhibitions at the MACBA: Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Spain; MAMC–Musée d’art moderne et contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint- Étienne, France; Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, England; and Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas. He lives and works in Barcelona.

For all press inquiries, please contact Allie Bindler, ab@richardgraygallery.com