The volume brings together the complete corpus of the writings of Giuseppe Penone, elaborated in his long career and for the first time published in Italy. These are the artist’s own words, which help us enter into the thought-process of a work already in progress.
“Penone’s writings, a truly intimate bio-botanical treatise, keep step with his work. They begin when his work begins and follow a parallel line of development and continuity with it. A pantheistic lyricism close to wonder: one enters a sort of poetic prose by addition, by growth like vegetable rings,” writes Francesco Stocchi, editor of the collection.
Always immersed in history, Penone’s practice is organised by the constant union of sculpture with observation of nature. By sculpting time, the artist replaces the time of his own arbitrary and performative act with the slow and inexorable time of nature.
The dialogue he establishes with nature is an intimate, whispered conversation. Penone’s awareness of a brotherhood with stones or plants (as Klee wrote, man “is nature, a piece of nature in the area of nature”), his casual familiarity with Antiquity enables him to engage in a dialogue on an equal footing with the tree and the stream, and with their tutelary deities, borrowed mainly from the Graeco-Roman pantheon.
The volume, with a back cover drawn by the artist’s hand, can be read as a collection of mythical stories, of founding parables, turning our gaze towards the magnificence of Roman ruins. It is published on the occasion of the project “Idee di pietra. Giuseppe Penone a Caracalla”, where the artist has chosen to include four works in the visitors’ circuit of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
€ 25,00