Can You Hear Me? is a 75-minute documentary produced by Mallerich Films Paco Poch in collaboration with the artist's studio and with the associate production of Galerie Lelong in New York, Gray Gallery in Chicago/NY, and Galerie Lelong in Paris.
This documentary is the result of a desire to create a groundbreaking audiovisual work that allows viewers, for the first time, complete access to Jaume Plensa, his environment, and his creative process.
His works are so complex that each time he creates a new sculpture, he has to devise a way to construct, transport, and install it, always presenting an additional engineering challenge and mobilizing a huge amount of people and effort to ensure that each piece arrives in its exact location, exactly as it should.
The documentary follows the creation and construction process of Voices (2019), a large-scale work composed of 11 spheres, each between 2 and 5 meters in diameter, installed in the lobby of a newly built skyscraper in the Hudson Yards complex in New York.
Also in America, we visit his most famous work, the legendary Crown Fountain (2004) in Chicago, where he created a globally recognized icon and laid the foundation for his later work, as well as a spectacular human figure that welcomes visitors—with its back turned!—to the city of Montreal.
We witness the opening of his sculpture exhibition in the Royal Gardens, “Djurgården,” in Stockholm, and also in Sweden, we travel to the island of Klövedal, north of Gothenburg, where Anna (2015), one of his 14-meter-tall female heads, stands alone amidst a dreamlike landscape.
We will travel to Japan, the country that gave rise to his work in public spaces. After showing two of his most significant pieces in Tokyo, we will follow him to the small island of Ogijima, where he built a delicate welcome pavilion for travelers arriving by boat.
We will also see him install, with the help of helicopters, three bronze pieces on the island of Porquerolles, in France.
Back home, we will experience an intense reunion of the artist with his own country: the installation of Julia (2018) in Madrid's Plaza Colón and the exhibition Invisibles (2018) at the Crystal Palace, Reina Sofía Museum, as well as the major retrospective exhibition at the MACBA in Barcelona.
And the journey ends back in New York, where Plensa inaugurates Voices (2019) while simultaneously installing a piece on Fifth Avenue, in Rockefeller Plaza. There, we will follow the installation and all the tension and anxieties it brings to its creator.
This documentary was made with the intention of a long run, premiering at major documentary festivals worldwide, as well as being broadcast on television and included in the numerous exhibitions the artist holds each year in museums and art centers around the globe.
Since Jaume Plensa was commissioned in late 2017 to create and install Voices (2019) in the lobby of a New York skyscraper, a team led by Pedro Ballesteros set out to document this and other projects he was undertaking.
The key to the documentary's approach has been its intimacy. Plensa is an artist who is unafraid of being in front of a camera and is remarkably generous in his self-expression. This has resulted in a vibrant and dynamic documentary that allows the viewer an intimate and profound look at his work and its meanings. The narrative follows a structure of seven major thematic blocks in which, jumping from work to work, from one country to another, Plensa himself guides us and introduces us to the ideas that fuel his art, revealing his commitment and passion for an art that, in his words, is capable of illuminating us.
The documentary was filmed with an Arri Alexa Mini and a set of vintage prime lenses, seeking a spontaneous and naturalistic approach while also achieving a distinctive aesthetic that connects with Plensa's universe and poetics.
Català
Español
