Guiseppe Penone
Giuseppe Penone is one of the leading figures of Arte Povera, a movement founded in Turin in 1967 which pioneered new forms of sculpture through the use of natural or everyday materials and simple gestures. Originally from an old village in Liguria, Giuseppe Penone is deeply influenced by the natural environment of northern Italy, shaped by human hands over the centuries. From the 1970s onwards, he developed a body of work based on a poetic approach to nature, leading to a reflection on humankind and its power over its environment and, by extension, over the world. Breath, skin, fingernails, fingerprints and growth rings are the paradigms of this exploration, fusing the individual and the universal, with the tree – humanity’s alter ego – as one of its principal motifs. Created using traditional materials (bronze, marble) or natural elements (thorns, stones, water), her works offer a holistic experience that engages the mind, sight, touch and smell.
In contrast to the smoothness of contemporary society, Giuseppe Penone, ever since his earliest drawings depicting his own skin being unravelled, has attached existential significance to the rendering of the surface. Far from seeing this as a mere representation of appearance, he brings to the fore, in tree bark, marble or, more recently, leather, a vital network of veins through which the fluidity of existence is expressed in a Heraclitean movement.
