After months of planning and anxious waiting, a sculpture by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa arrives today and will be installed at the Mudd Field entrance to the Atrium of Knight Hall and Bauer Hall.

Ainsa I is a large-scale seated human figure comprised of a filigree of stainless steel letters from nine different alphabets. Plensa’s work embodies the diversity that characterizes Olin and the University at large. It also transforms the experience of its site, offering both a new focal point and a transition between human and architectural scale, while calling attention to the essentially communal nature of the building plaza.

Ainsa I represents the inaugural commission for Art on Campus, a percent-for-art program that establishes a significant presence for public art at Washington University while it builds on the University’s world-class collection of art. Created in 2010, Art on Campus commissions art in connection with new construction and renovation projects across the Danforth Campus and at select University-owned off-campus locations.

Image credit

Jaume Plensa, Ainsa I, 2013. Stainless steel and limestone, 126 x 84 5/8 x 149 5/8″. Installation view, Jaume Plensa à Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, 2013. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Art on Campus fund, Olin Business School, 2013. © Jaume Plensa, courtesy of Galerie Lelong, New York. Photo by Thomas Sanson, © Ville de Bordeaux.