The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone

The Bloomberg Commission:
Giuseppe Penone
Opens 5 September 2012
Large print labels and interpretation
Gallery 2
The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone: Spazio di
Luce (Space of Light)
For the latest annual Bloomberg Commission Italian artist
Giuseppe Penone (b. 1947) has created an ambitious bronze
sculpture which invites us to rethink the relationships of
sight and touch, outdoors and indoors, nature and the city.
Over the past 45 years, Giuseppe Penone’s work has probed
industrialised society’s understanding of nature. Rather than
seeing them as distinct or opposed, Penone insists that the
spheres of culture and nature are inseparably intertwined.
In his early twenties, Penone became associated with a loose
grouping of innovative artists who rapidly rose to
international prominence under the name of Arte Povera.
Inspired by the radical politics of the late 1960s and
frustrated by the limitations of art as taught by the
academies, these artists embraced diverse sculptural
practices and materials for their work to have a wider social
impact.
Revaluating notions of time and progress played an
important role in this. For his earliest works, Penone
attached the steel cast of his hand to a young sapling for it
slowly to be absorbed by the growing tree. He also traced the
outline of his body with wire onto a tree and simulated one
more year’s tree growth by applying a thin layer of wax. It is
from the latter ‘action’ that Spazio di Luce takes its cue.
At first glance the sculpture looks like the cast of a tree, but
it actually solidifies a thick layer of wax covering a large larch
found on the Franco-Italian border. The outside of the tree,
its bark, consequently is on the gold-covered inside while the
cast’s exterior bears the memory of human touch in the form
of the artist and the foundry workers’ finger prints. In the
earlier Essere Fiume (To Be River) (2000) a sculpture made by
Penone perfectly mimics a rock shaped by river water,
thereby creating an analogy between the forces of nature
and the actions of the sculptor.
Find out more:
A fully illustrated book including an extensive interview with
the artist and an essay by Douglas Fogle is on sale in the
Bookshop from mid-October 2012.
Buy a beautiful limited edition work of art by Giuseppe
Penone at the Information Desk.
Visit whitechapelgallery.org to see a behind-the-scenes film
of Giuseppe Penone in his studio and to find out more about
a programme of talks and events inspired by nature, the city
and The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone.
Supported by:
The Bloomberg Commission invites an international artist to
create an annual site-specific artwork inspired by the rich
history of the former library. Bloomberg’s support reflects its
commitment to innovation, and its ongoing efforts to expand
access to art, science and the humanities.
With additional support provided by the Wingate
Scholarships.
The Bloomberg Commission:
Giuseppe Penone
Whitechapel Gallery
Installation View
Photo: David Parry / PA Wire
The Bloomberg Commission:
Giuseppe Penone
Whitechapel Gallery
Installation View
Photo: David Parry / PA Wire
The Bloomberg Commission:
Giuseppe Penone
Whitechapel Gallery
Installation View
Photo: David Parry / PA Wire
Giuseppe Penone
Continuerà a crescere tranne
che in quel punto
1968
tree, steel
documentation of the growth
of the tree in 1978
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Rovesciare i propri occhi
1970
mirroring contact lenses
photographic documentation
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Idee di pietra
2003
bronze, grey granite river
stone
830 x 250 x 220 cm
Installed for dOCUMENTA
(13) in Auepark, Kassel, on 21
June 2010
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Cedro di Versailles
2000-2003
cedar wood
630 x 160 cm
photographic documentation
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Soffio di foglie
1979
boxwood leaves
dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Nel legno
2008
larch wood
350 x 43 x 41.5 cm
Courtesy the artist and
Marian Goodman Gallery,
N.Y./Paris
photo © Archivio Penone
Giuseppe Penone
Gli anni dell'albero più uno
1969
wood, wax
(The years of the tree plus
one)
Black and white photograph
documenting the exhibition
at Galleria Gian Enzo
Sperone, Turin.
photographic documentation
Courtesy the artist
photo © Paolo Mussat Sartor
Giuseppe Penone
Essere fiume 6
1998
1 river stone and 1 quarry
stone of white Carrara
marble
2 elements, 36 x 50 x 63 cm
each
Courtesy the artist
photo © Archivio Penone
Over one year this series of changing displays offers different
vantage points to understanding how Spazio di Luce
connects with Penone’s work of the past 50 years.
Trees have been a focal point for Penone throughout his
career. Many of his earliest so-called ‘actions’,
performances that survive only as photographs, took place in
the forests near Turin or his home town of Garessio in Italy.
To bring the outdoors into the gallery was an important
strategy for many of the artists associated with the
legendary group of Arte Povera.
In 1969, Penone covered a young tree with a thin layer of wax
to simulate an additional year’s growth. With the artist’s
finger prints replacing the texture of the tree’s bark, Gli anni
dell’albero piú uno (The years of the tree plus one) (1969) is
emblematic of Penone’s investigation of the relationship
between our bodies and the eco systems we inhabit.
The following year, Penone began work on his ongoing series
of Alberi or Trees for which he stripped industrially cut
beams back to reveal the shape of the younger tree within.
Photographs and objects on view here document Penone’s
earliest works with trees including his first Albero as well as
a collective action of carving a 12 metre-long tree carried out
in Munich, Germany, in 1970.
From the very beginning, Penone has reflected on his work by
writing poetic aphorisms. Two of these have been selected
here to express the artist’s thoughts on the actions of
carving and covering trees.
Please can you return large print
labels to the gallery assistant.