Place de la Comédie, Bordeaux, France

"Sanna" by Jaume Plensa, Place de la Comédie, Bordeaux, France

Place de la Comédie is perhaps the central, historic square of Bordeaux. Many visitors come here to stand in awe of the neoclassical architecture of Opéra National de Bordeaux (The Grand Theater, 1780) and it's equally magnificent InterContinental Bordeaux Le Grand Hôtel (The Grand Hotel), which faces the opera house.

But, what caught my was the rust-colored sculpture of a human head in the middle of the square. The head sculpture appears to mimic the shape of a person's head, but when you look at it, you find that piece is, in fact, flattened, almost to the point of being two dimentional. Different viewing angles of the artwork provide vastly different perspectives. Curious, I asked our friend who was showing us around the city about the strange object.

He dismissed the piece of art as "some rich guy's folly," and redirected our attention to the architectural lines of the opera house.

When I got home, I looked for some more information about the odd sculpture. Turns out, it was created by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and is titled "Sanna." According to Google Translate, "sanna" means "it lacks" in Catalan (which is a distinct language from Spanish). I'm not certain what "it lacks" means in relation to this sculpture, but I can guess that maybe, since the work is flattened, "it lacks" three dimensional space.

Turns out, "Sanna" is on loan to the city of Bordeaux, and while the city tried to purchase the work, they were unable to raise the funds, so it could be removed from the square at any time.

Mr. Plensa has done similar works in New York City, Venice, Barcelona, and several other cities. You can see examples on his website. But, my favorite piece of his work is the amazing Crown Fountain in Millennium Park in Chicago. 
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