Spotlight: Jaume Plensa - A New Humanism at the Denver Botanic Gardens

Debuting at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the career retrospective Jaume Plensa: A New Humanism has made its way to Denver. Meijer Gardens collaborated with the Denver Botanic Gardens to continue the exhibition’s journey. After taking us through the gardens, Jen Tobias, Associate Director of Exhibitions and Art Collections and Associate Curator of Art, sat down to talk about the exhibition, which runs through September 7th.

Jamie Lammers: I’m here for my first time to celebrate this new exhibition. Do you wanna talk about that a little bit?
Jen Tobias: The exhibition is called A New Humanism. It features works by Barcelona-born artist Jaume Plensa. He’s an artist who’s interested in the idea of the individual experience as it applies to all of us, which, of course, makes it universal. Each of us as an individual has value, and we have individual experiences, but at the same time, the things that we share as a community are profound and powerful.

Jamie: What is the process of picking what art is going to go where?
Jen: It starts often with curatorial vision. What is the exhibition about? What do we want it to say? How does it support the visitor experience? We start with those kinds of questions, working with the artist about their artistic vision, and then it’s also this combination of logistics. When you walk into an exhibition, it’s a bit like walking into a story that’s about something in particular. We wanna make sure we have the right pieces in the right place so that the story makes sense and is something people can understand when they walk into it.

Jamie: What is the message that you’re hoping people take away?
Jen: The goal is always for people to have an experience with artwork that is joyful and powerful, and that can look like a lot of different things. We always say in museums that people take away what they come to an artwork with. You can’t tell somebody how to interpret artwork because everybody experiences it with the background of their own unique perspective and experience, which, of course, is perfect for Jaume Plensa’s work, because that’s exactly what it’s about. But we do our best to express what the artwork is about and how it fits into us as a place. Here, the key idea really is that each of us, as an individual, is valuable and beautiful, and we fit into this thing called culture and community and collective that is also valuable and beautiful.

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