Image de pierre, 2011

Giuseppe Penone   Master Artists

Giuseppe Penone is an Italian artist born in 1947 in Piedmont. After studying accounting, he studied sculpture at the Fine Arts in Turin. He currently lives and works in Turin as well as in Paris and is a teacher at the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The artist is associated with the “ Arte Povera " movement, an Italian artistic movement that appeared on the international scene in the 1960s. Through these works, the artist questions the relationship between nature and culture. He works on gesture and trace using natural materials. Being the grandson and son of a farmer, the artist has always been in contact with nature, which explains his knowledge of the natural environment. He therefore places natural materials and particularly trees at the heart of his artistic projects. His works also express his sensitivity towards the body and its relationship with nature. We can cite, Sentier de charme, created in 1986. In this in situ work, Giuseppe Penone confronts the human body and nature by implanting a silhouette of a woman in bronze which blends with the tree which accompanies it. The artist's wish is also to invite the viewer to a tactile immersion in the location of his works. Both the look and the touch are invited to interact with the work.

Concerning his production technique, the artist chooses to favor the coherence of the process at least as much as the materials. Using bronze, tree branches and reed stems, the artist creates works with unique shapes. The choice of the tree as a creative medium allows the artist to be able to operate on transformation or metamorphoses. This is what the artist seeks to show in his artistic series “Alpi marittimes" which represents a set of black and white photographs in the Gian Enzo Sperone Gallery in Turin. In 2004 his work entitled “Respirare l'ombra" was exhibited in Avignon, housing a room lined with laurel leaves housing a pair of bronze lungs inside.

A major artist of the second half of the 20th century, his works are exhibited at the Fondation Cartier, the MNAM, the Tate and even the MoMA…