Idee di pietra | Idées de pierre, 2004-2007

Bronze, acier, pierres, chêne vert | Bronzo, acciaio, pietre, leccio

1270 x 550 x 500 cm - Collection de l’artiste | Collezione dell’artista
Foto: Claudio Abate

Giuseppe Penone was born in 1947 in Garessio, a small town in Piemonte where he passed his childhood amongst cultivated fields and large forests. The son of farmers, his first memories comprise “mountains of chestnuts and rooms full of mushrooms brought in on the backs of mules in enormous sacks.” In search of a personal identity, the artist decided to work in his birthplace and, at just over 20 years of age, he began to work with materials he was more familiar with: tree trunks and bark, forests and stones, lakes and streams. Over the years, and without having lost its apparent simplicity, Penone’s work has been enriched by new registers and nuances, as well as new materials and formats.

The exhibition Giuseppe Penone. La mostra a Villa Medici in Rome gathers together approximately 31 pieces (some in the format of large installation pieces). His work on the growth of matter in space culminate in the installation Idee di pietra (Stones’ Idea), a Life Size Cast Bronze Tree placed in the Villa’s Gardens, and incastonated with marble blocks to stand for crystal ideas. And Pietra di Foglie(Leaves Stone), 2006, reproduces a stone in the natural crypt room covered in bay leaves, where smell plays a very special role to get in symbiosis within substances, species and the environment.