Spanish Artist Jaume Plensa Presents ‘Four Elements’ Installation at KU Leuven
As of today, you can admire the artwork The Four Elements by internationally renowned artist Jauma Plensa in Leuven. He created the artwork especially for KU Leuven. The monumental work is made up of the four elements – fire, earth, air and water – and consists of two physical images. The element Fire is given a place in the outdoor gallery of the University Library . On the Hertogen site, the three other elements are placed on top of each other as a totem: Earth, Air and Water . The totem will remain shielded for a while due to the works on the site.
The Spanish artist Jaume Plensa from Barcelona is known worldwide for his meter-high sculptures of human heads in Calgary, Chicago, New York, Madrid, Antibes, Liverpool, Venice and Tokyo, among others. The artwork The Four Elements , which he created especially for KU Leuven, also fits in with this line. The sculpture is unique to Plensa’s oeuvre because one sculpture is in two locations, and because for the first time he also stacks elements in height.
The dual statue is in bronze and shows the bond between university and city, between science and art, between healthcare and institutions.
The four elements – fire, water, earth, air – create man and bring people together in their human and human form. It also shows the vulnerability of people as individuals, including within our communities on this planet. The four diverse faces look together in different directions.
The serenity of images runs like a thread from the ‘sedes sapientiae’, to Vesalius, to Plensa.
The Fire part is about 273 cm high and weighs 692 kg. It will be placed in the University Library. During the search for suitable locations, the artist felt a strong connection with the location and the symbolism of the University Library. The choice of location is not accidental. ‘The fact that this statue, Fire, is given a place here, in the gallery of our University Library, which went up in flames twice, is not just purely symbolic,’ says Rector Luc Sels. ‘It is also a thank you to the many donors who made the reconstruction of our library possible. Solidarity then extended worldwide and help came from all corners. At the same time, there is also the link with our 600th anniversary in 2025, a year in which art will also play an important role.’
The choice of the second location, Sint-Raphaëlplein on the Hertogensite in the center of Leuven, is also very significant. Both healthcare itself and research into it have a very long tradition within the city and more specifically at the Hertogensite, where the Faculty of Medicine was once located. The former hospital site is currently being given a new purpose, with a focus on care but also attention for the founder of anatomy with the Vesalius Experience Center of KU Leuven. The totem, with a height of 846 cm and a weight of 2,344 kilograms, will not be accessible to the general public for a while due to the works on the Hertogen site.
Opening the future
The idea for a work of art in the Leuven public space arose from Opening the future (Otf), KU Leuven’s patronage program that aims to support top scientific research into neurodegeneration and oncology at the university. The choice of Plensa is not a coincidence, explains Urbain Vandeurzen, chairman of Otf: ‘Language and imaging are shared instruments of scientific and artistic research. Imaging is essential when researching the functions and dysfunctions of the human brain. Research into dementia and other related degenerative processes of the brain results in language and images faltering. Plensa’s iconography addresses the interaction of words, images and imaginations in a very explicit and unique way. His work bridges and links science and art in a convincing way.’
There is also the reference to the Sedes Sapientiae, the most iconic statue of the university by Nicolaas De Bruyne (1422). ‘As a ‘seat of wisdom’, De Sedes has a very strong ‘continuation’ in the iconic images for which Jaume Plensa is so famous. He also works and thinks with concepts such as the ‘seat of wisdom’ and ‘body of knowledge’, which are closely related to the Sedes Sapientiae,” says Professor Geert Bouckaert, chairman of the KU Leuven Contemporary Art Committee.
Moreover, there is also a link with Vesalius, historically the most iconic scientist but also an artist. He expanded ‘knowledge of the body’ through his engravings, clearly depicted in his De Humani Corpis Fabrica (1543), which served as a model for both scientific insights into the human body and artistic insights into the representation of human bodies for centuries to come. bodies. ‘Plensa’s work is a contemporary version in the vein of Vesalius, by depicting and imagining a cartography of the human body. That is one of the reasons why Plensa’s totem Earth, Air and Water is given a place at the Vesalius experience center, which is currently in full development,” adds Rector Sels.
The two physical images were posted on January 31, 2024. Jaume Plensa paid an inspection visit to both sites on February 1. In the spring of this year he will travel again to Leuven for the solemn inauguration of the works on June 12. A book and a number of lectures will also follow in the autumn.
The statue on the Hertogen site will not be accessible to the general public for the time being due to the works on the site.