The sculpture Islands, by Jaume Plensauntil now located in the trees of the final section of the Rambla de Santa Cruz, shines since yesterday in its new location, on the José Blasco Robles promenade in the Garcia Sanabria Park, which starts from the roundabout area of the Hotel Mencey and reaches the central fountain of the García Sanabria. The transfer of this work, which has the approval of the artist, is carried out for reasons of pruning the trees where it was located until now.
According to the capital’s City Council, the entire transfer process, as well as the location, has been agreed upon both with the artist, who visited the city some time ago, and with the Colegio de Arquitectos Street Sculpture Commission, and its manager, Carlos Schwartz, who was at the García Sanabria yesterday supervising the transfer and placement of the Plensa work.
In the same promenade where you can already see the work of the Catalan sculptor, who made this sculpture for the second edition of the International Exhibition of Street Sculptures, there are also other pieces, in this case from the I Exhibition, held in 1973, specifically the titled Introversion, by Josep María Subirachs. Also located on this promenade, right at its beginning, is a work by Jaime Cubells. Very close to the José Blasco Robles promenade, in the one dedicated to Arístides Ferrer, is the work Homenaje a Gaudí, whose author is Eduardo Paolozzi. On the same road is the Monument to the Cat, by Óscar Domínguez.
Plensa’s work was installed on the Rambla in 1994, in the second edition of the International Exhibition of Street Sculptures, and is entitled Islands. Already in 2016 the work was withdrawn to proceed with its restoration, since several boxes had been lost, and the rest presented a poor state of conservation. Relocating it to its original location, with the updating of lighting in accordance with current regulations.
Islas is a set of 73 boxes of black aluminium, methacrylate and neon suspended by steel cables on the branches of the trees. What draws attention is the contrast produced in the first place between the dense and chaotic foliage of nature and the boxes. regular with a random placement, but within an order.
In turn, the work can have two readings, taking into account what time (from the point of view of solar illumination) it is contemplated, according to the Cicop in the Cultural Heritage Manager of the city. Thus, with natural light, the boxes without being lit seem almost phantasmagorical objects, they come to constitute entities suspended in time or space, being able to be confused with the tree branches, but, at night, with their own lighting, which allows reading the text contained in each box, take another meaning. They are names that take us back to beings who have lived very close to the contemporary world and who, due to the opposition of proper names, can partly contemplate the world of 20th century art in a subjective way.
