Giuseppe Penone

Giuseppe Penone – In search of the ‘magical primal essence’ of the world

Giuseppe Penone was born in the small village of Garessio in Italy on 3 April 1947. From the beginning, he was occupied as an artist with the connections between all that exists, and making this visible for as many people as possible is the motivation that drives him to this day. In search of what he calls the ‘magical primal essence’, Giuseppe Penone experimented even in his early work with all kinds of different materials including lead, plaster, iron, wood and wax to bring out their individual physical properties. In 1968 he succeeded in creating his first characteristic work group with which he programmatically defined his later oeuvre: In its entire orientation, the work Alpi Marittime followed the model of nature, namely the forested region where Giuseppe Penone worked at the time. His documentation, made up of images and text, found its was in 1969 into the book Arte Povera by Germano Celant and established Penone’s fame as one of the important representatives of this art movement. 

The tree as recurring motif in Penone’s work

Giuseppe Penone has stood at the pinnacle of Arte Povera since the end of the 1960s. Without exception, his work takes place in and with nature. An important and often recurring leitmotif is the tree and, since 1969, the so-called Alberi (trees) have been an integral part of his oeuvre. In doing so, the artist follows the growth lines and rings, thus approximating the original form of the tree before it was felled. In addition to the tree, Penone often uses his own body as a working material. As early as 1970, he made a photographic self-portrait in which he wore mirrored contact lenses. In this way, he created the illusion of a sightless eye, making him appear blind, refusing any visual contact – an unpleasant-looking visual experiment that also challenges the viewer intellectually. 

International honours and exhibition success

In 1972, Giuseppe Penone took part in Documenta 5 in the section Individual Mythologies, was also present in Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 (1987), and in 2021, his artwork Idee di Pietra (Views of the Stone), a 9-meter-high bronze sculpture that referenced the landscape artwork 7000 Oaks by Joseph Beuys, was presented as the first contribution for dOCUMENTA (13). In 2004, the Centre Georges Pompidou dedicated a retrospective to Penone. Giuseppe Penone has received prizes and awards for his work, including the Rudolf Schock Preis in 2001, the renowned Praemium Imperiale in 2014, as well as the appointment to the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Literature by Pope Francis in 2019.

Giuseppe Penone lives and works in Turin, but also regularly spends time in Paris.