Art has spilled out of the Tampa Museum of Art – onto their terrace and even into downtown's Curtis Hixon park.
It’s part of an exhibition by world-renowned sculptor Jaume Plensa, on display at the museum through May 15.
The first striking visual in the indoor exhibition are two massive metal mesh heads—they are shape and form that one can see into and through.
"It's this beautiful way of representing that we are who we appear to be,” explained Tampa Museum of Art Curator Seth Pevnick, “but we are also something more than that because we all have our inner-beings our soul."
What makes up a soul? Is it the written word?
The piece “Silent Rain” is hanging curtains of vertical poetry.
Plensa encourages museum-goers to gently caress and walk through and be touched by the works of Baudelaire to Goethe to Shakespeare.
The outdoor installations fit in perfectly with the exhibition name—“The Human Landscape,” made-up of human forms attempting to capture the essence of the soul.
One bronze installation does so with music.
Plensa sculpted seated figures on sodded mounds of earth wrapped around palm trees.
The figures are stamped with great musical composers of centuries past.
"He is borrowing from people who are interested in music and poetry and literature to make a 3-dimentional representation of our souls," said Pevnick.
For the museum, it's the first time they've presented large scale outdoor sculpture—as a gift to the people of Tampa.
"We hope that they will read the label and see that the exhibition continues inside the museum, said Pevnick."But the first step is to engage with it outside. And we hope that they will be excited by it and want to learn more."