{ "id": 1912, "date": "2025-05-09T10:21:55", "date_gmt": "2025-05-09T10:21:55", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/artecontinua.org\/?post_type=artist&p=1912" }, "modified": "2025-05-19T16:19:22", "modified_gmt": "2025-05-19T16:19:22", "slug": "giuseppe-penone", "status": "publish", "type": "artist", "link": "https:\/\/artecontinua.org\/en\/artist\/giuseppe-penone\/", "title": { "rendered": "Giuseppe Penone" }, "content": { "rendered": "

Giuseppe Penone<\/strong> (Garessio, 1947) is one of the leading figures of Arte Povera, renowned for his ability to create a dialogue between art, nature, and time. Through sculptures, installations, and drawings, Penone explores the relationship between humanity and the natural environment, using materials like wood, stone, and metals to create works of great poetic and symbolic power.<\/p>\n

In 2008, he\/she\/it participated in Arte Pollino<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, a project that brought contemporary art into the heart of Pollino National Park<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, where he created works in harmony with the natural landscape. In 2021, in collaboration with the Associazione Arte Continua, he presented the exhibition Trees in verse <\/em><\/strong><\/a>inside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and installed the sculpture Fir<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in Piazza della Signoria, creating a dialogue between contemporary art and the historicity of the location.<\/p>\n

Penone continues to be a central figure in international contemporary art, capable of uniting conceptual depth with an extraordinary sensitivity towards the natural world.<\/p>\n

Born in Garessio, in the province of Cuneo, on 3 April 1947. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, where he met Giovanni Anselmo and Michelangelo Pistoletto, with whom he became part of the Arte Povera movement in 1967. He first exhibited in 1968 at the Deposito d\u2019Arte Presente, presenting works made with unconventional materials such as lead, copper, wax, pitch, and wood, which in some cases even involved the natural action of the elements (Scala d\u2019acqua: rope, rain, sun).<\/p>\n

In the Garessio woods, the artist carried out a series of performances aimed at exploring humankind's possibilities for interacting with and modifying nature, intervening, for example, in the growth process of trees (Alpi Marittime, 1968). In 1970, he began investigating the relationship between the human body and the external, this time urban, environment. In line with body art trends, he created works such as \u2019Rovesciare gli occhi\u201c (Turning the Eyes Inside Out) and \u201dSvolgere la propria pelle\" (Unrolling One's Own Skin) (1971), which identified the human epidermis as the surface of contact and dialogue between the inner \"self\" and the world. This led to the use of casting and frottage, allowing the artist to start from an image as automatic as it was unconscious, like a print, which he then reinforced with drawing (Pressione, 1974). The idea of contact as a generator of memory and change became prominent in his terracotta works from the mid-decade (Vaso, 1975; Soffio, 1978), which played on projecting outwards what the body contains or the skin that covers it. Through these, the artist was present at dOCUMENTA in Kassel (1972-87) and at the 38th Venice Biennale in 1978, which focused precisely on the relationship between art and nature. In some cases, the works took on environmental dimensions, as in the installations created for solo exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne (1977), the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1981), and the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1984).<\/p>\n

The same idea underpins the large bronze trees intended for public spaces: M\u00fcnster's Well, completed in 1987 for the first edition of \u201cSkulpture Projects\u201d; Otterloo Beech in the Kr\u00f6ller-M\u00fcller Museum park (1988); the Alphabet Tree inaugurated in 2000 in the Tuileries, Paris, Elevation in Rotterdam (2000-01) or Stone Leaves in Rome (2017). Similar to skin, nails are a sensory element and a means of relating to the outside world, inspiring a series of large glass sculptures made from 1987 and exhibited in 1998 at the Mus\u00e9e Rodin in Paris in contact with different materials. A Nail, made between 1988 and 1994, is installed outside the I-Land building complex in NishiShinjuku (Tokyo). The process of assimilation between animal, plant and mineral morphology implemented by the artist is reiterated in Cedar Skin of 2002, exhibited in the retrospective organised by the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2004. In 2007, the artist was invited to represent Italy at the 52nd Venice Biennale (Sap Sculpture) alongside Francesco Vezzoli. In 1989, he was among the finalist artists for the prestigious Turner Prize. In 2014, he was awarded the Imperial Prize for sculpture. In Tokyo, in 2014, he received what is considered the \u2019Nobel Prize for Art\u201c: the Praemium Imperiale, for sculpture, in the presence of Japanese Prince Hitachi, honorary patron of the Japan Art Association. In 2015, he held a solo exhibition, \u201dSpace of Light,\u201d at the prestigious Gagosian Gallery in Rome. In 2016, a large-scale installation \u201cLeaves of Light\u201d was among the first works to become part of the permanent collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).<\/p>\n

In 2017, the exhibition \u201cMatrice\u201d was showcased at the Palazzo della Civilt\u00e0 Italiana in Rome, the headquarters of the Fendi fashion house. This exhibition featured a selection of 15 works, some of which were previously unseen, by the sculptor from Piedmont.\n\nThe exhibition takes its name from the spectacular 2015 work, \u201cMatrice,\u201d which dominates one of the halls. This piece is a 30-metre fir tree trunk, carved along a growth ring, with a bronze form embedded to immortalise the flow of nature's life.\n\nPart of the exhibition include: Ripetere il bosco (1969-2016), Soffio di foglie (1979), Spine d\u2019acacia \u2013 Contatto (2006), Essere Fiume (2010), Indistinti confini: Anio (2012), Abete (2013), and the series Foglie di pietra (2013).\n\nIn the spring of the same year, Fendi gifted the city of Rome Penone's artwork, \u201cFoglie di pietra.\u201d This imposing marble and bronze installation was specifically designed to redevelop the Largo Goldoni area, the heart of Rome's Trident. Two impressive bronze trees, measuring 18 and 9 metres, stand in front of the Fendi building, supporting a marble block weighing over 11 tonnes among their branches.<\/p>\n

Giuseppe Penone lives and works in Turin<\/p>\n

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