Carmela

It's been a long time since I walked down Via Laietana. I hadn't seen it without tourists yet. The cathedral, yes. At the beginning of the pandemic. It's not very appealing to walk, for example, at eleven if you know you won't be able to go in to have anything or ---pardon the prosaic--- go to the bathroom of some bar in exchange, precisely, for having something. For me, the charm of walking through a foreign or one's own city is not just seeing monuments. It's above all going into hardware stores, clothing stores, candle or toy stores, food stores, of course, and at some point having a glass of wine here or coffee there. Before covid, I used to buy a hot sandwich at Conesa, in Plaça de Sant Jaume, and eat it sitting on some curb nearby.

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Today, however, I have an errand to run (a "recado," as my father used to say) and taking advantage of the occasion, I go to the Palau de la Música. You might not believe it, but I hadn't seen Jaume Plensa's sculpture yet, on Sant Pere Mes Alt street. It's called Carmela, I did know that, and I think it was previously installed in front of the Palau. The charm of this sculpture, which is the head of a teenager, but could be the head of a priest, an alien, a goddess, a prehistoric woman, any girl, is that, depending on where you look at it from, it's one thing or another.

There are those who pass by Carmela without seeing her. That's how it must be. There are those who pass by Carmela and suddenly make a gesture as if pricked. A surprise in the middle of the path. And there are those who pass by Carmela with the intention of contemplating her. Those who have a surprise and those who, like me, intend to contemplate her do the same: they look at her from all angles. Now from the front. Oh, now from the side. But she's so thin! Ah, this ear, this ear has been specially created so that I, right now, have this feeling and smile. Oh, and now from the other side. Who are you, Carmela? I'll have to look at you from the front again. Which of the Carmelas are you?

A street sculpture must have certain characteristics. I suppose the artist expects ---perhaps hopes--- that someone will climb on it, deface it, dirty it. He expects, of course, that not everyone will appreciate it. But this Carmela is something else. Suddenly, it makes me understand Jaume Plensa, whom I don't know at all, very well, and I really like him. Carmela couldn't be simpler. Carmela couldn't be more complicated.