The main aim is to give people the opportunity to learn about cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading cause of death worldwide, and to highlight the importance of their prevention and treatment.
‘The Secret Heart’ will be inaugurated on Thursday 28 September in the afternoon at an institutional event, and it will be located at the main entrance to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona.
It will be possible to view the installation free of charge on Carrer de Casanova until the afternoon of Monday 2 October. The work is 13 metres high by 9.5 metres wide (27 metres in diameter) and weighs 150 kg. It was first exhibited at the Augsburg-Oberhausen gasworks (Germany) in 2014.
A work exhibited in Germany in 2014
Invited by Augsburg’s Museum Consortium, the artist Jaume Plensa exhibited in three different spaces in the city: in the H2 Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst, the Schaezlerpalais and the Gaskessel (Gasworks). For the Gaskessel, Jaume Plensa created a large inflatable heart, which, filling the space, transformed the former gasworks into a body full of life.
‘The Secret Heart' was built aiming to be as realistic as possible, with synthetic fabrics and painted by hand following the shapes and colours of anatomic models and treatises. In 2014, the Augsburg installation was accompanied by an audio recording paying tribute to the ‘Das Geheimherz der Uhr’ (The Secret Heart of the Clock) text by Elias Canetti.
Jaume Plensa created a speaking clock, recording the voices of a large number of men and women from the city of Augsburg, following the real passing of the seconds, minutes and hours.
Plensa and the Hospital Clínic
In October 2020, the artist Jaume Plensa also gave one of his sculptures to the Hospital Clínic Barcelona to pay tribute to and thank all the healthcare staff for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sculpture, entitled 'Blau' (Blue), is a face sculpted in a large basalt rock, which is over 2 metres high, weighs 2.5 tonnes and is located in the Hospital’s main foyer, on Carrer de Villarroel.
