- Title
The State of Desire
- Artist
- Arcangelo Sassolino
Jaume Plensa’s monumental seven-meter-tall sculpture Juana (2025) meets viewers along the waterfront of Tersane Istanbul on the shores of the Golden Horn. Cast in iron, the work marks Plensa’s first public art installation in Istanbul.
First exhibited in 2009 at Z33 House for Contemporary Art in Belgium, The State of Desire sets two large marble blocks into rhythmic motion using a mechanical structure crafted from steel beams. The themes of velocity, pressure, gravity, and physical tension central to Sassolino’s practice confront the permanence of marble, making the endless cycle between desire and fulfillment tangible through mechanical movement.
With G8–The Space opening its doors for the first time for this project, the installation marked one of the key early milestones of Tersane Istanbul’s contemporary art program. Realized in collaboration with Galleria Continua, the project stood as a compelling example of the vision uniting art with historical texture, architecture, and daily life.
