Italian artist Giuseppe Penone has played an integral role in the development of art over the past five decades. From his conceptual and performative works of the 1960s and 70s to the large-scale sculptural installations of the past 10 years, Penone has explored intimate, sensate, and metaphysical connections with nature.
Working in a stunning variety of materials—including clay, wood, stone, metal, plaster, resin, acacia thorns—the artist makes palpable and present the analogous processes of nature and art: carving large trees along their growth patterns to reveal the sapling contained within; elaborating the interior space of his closed hand into a large-scale sculpture that both contains his hand and enlarged the space it contains; rendering the swirling mists of his breath in the cold in tactile clay forms embellished with the impression of his body.
Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest was the first U.S. museum exhibition of the artist’s work in over thirty years. It featured a selection of work in a variety of materials, highlighting the development of Penone’s ideas over the course of his career.
Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest was organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center and supported by Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger. Additional support was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts.