Jaume Plensa’s "Echo"©AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Echo, Jaume Plensa’s commission for Madison Square Park, depicts a nine-year old girl from Plensa’s Barcelona neighborhood, lost in a state of thoughts and dreams. Standing forty-four feet tall at the center of the park’s expansive Oval Lawn, Echo’s towering stature and white marble-dusted surface harmoniously reflect the historic limestone buildings that surround the park. Both monumental in size and inviting in subject, the peaceful visage of Echo creates a tranquil and introspective atmosphere amid the cacophony of central Manhattan.
Plensa’s sculpture also refers to an episode in Greek mythology in which the loquacious nymph Echo is forced as punishment to repeat only the thoughts of others. Plensa’s Echo plays on the narrative of this Greek myth by depicting a young girl’s face in a state of reverie, translating this sculptural portrait into a physical monument of the internalized voices of the thousands of daily visitors to Madison Square Park.
Over the past three decades, the celebrated Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa has established an international reputation for creating public sculptures that are both monumental in scale and emotionally engaging in subject. Working in a wide variety of materials, Plensa has invigorated the practice of figurative sculpture with works that examine the intersection of the human form, language and communication, and global citizenship. Echo, a new site-specific sculpture for Madison Square Park, marks Plensa’s long-awaited New York City public space debut, and constitutes the largest monolithic work of art to be presented in Mad. Sq. Art’s seven-year history.
New York Times article and video

Published 10.05.2011