Once again, Galeria SENDA is pleased to announce our participation in By Invitation 2025, an exhibition featuring Jaume Plensa and Marcel Rubio Juliana, held for the sixth consecutive year. We look forward to welcoming you at the Círculo Ecuestre of Barcelona, in the Japanese Room, from November 6th to 9th.

Jaume Plensa presents his work “CAP III“, part of his production from the 1980s, a period in which he explored questions related to volume, space, and tension. Over time, his work would evolve to soften forms and materials, but in his early years, his sculpted heads reveal a continuous process of construction and destruction, positioning him as one of the precursors of 1980s neo-expressionism.

In this piece, Plensa employs cuts, folds, and deformations that, formally, create strong contrasts and reflect a desire to evoke brutalism and primitivism. These strategies also represent an investigation into the relationship between void and fullness an element that would later gain growing significance in his work.

In dialogue, we encounter the series by Marcel Rubio Juliana, “La Prueba de la Psicostasis“, shown to the public for the first time. The series portrays the episode of Psychostasia, the weighing of the soul described in the “Book of the Dead“.

In this passage, the soul of the deceased is brought before the celestial tribunal, composed of Isis, Osiris, and Horus. The evaluation of the soul begins, based on the moral weight of one’s most difficult life decisions. On one side of the scale lies truth, symbolised by the feather of Maat; on the other, the deceased’s heart the symbol of all they felt, thought, and chose. A frieze complements the narrative, illustrating the two movements of the heart, diastole and systole, which enable blood circulation and, by extension, life itself.

About the artists

The Barcelona-based sculptor Jaume Plensa presents a body of work rooted in gentle tensions: between light and darkness; the imprint of the past and the openness to the future; natural formation and human creation; the vastness of noise and the most intimate spheres of silence.
In addition to being one of the leading figures in contemporary sculpture, Plensa is internationally acclaimed for his commitment to public art. He highlights the importance of deconstructing reality and reaffirming nature to serve a greater purpose: “to reintroduce beauty into society.”

Marcel Rubio Juliana (1991, Barcelona) studied at the Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny Pau Gargallo in Badalona and later earned a Fine Arts degree from the University of Barcelona. He works primarily with drawing and painting, often approaching them with the sensibility of a literary essay. His creative process is slow and deliberate, expressed through both large-scale works and smaller pieces. Rubio has held solo exhibitions at venues such as the Fundació Joan Miró, Galeria Joan Prats, and Fundació Arranz-Bravo, and has taken part in prominent group shows such as Swab Barcelona, Espais Volart, and the Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona.