Biographies

Penone, Giuseppe

Giuseppe Penone was born in 1947 at Garessio near Cuneo. He began exhibiting in 1968 and joined the group of artists in the Arte Povera movement. In his sculptures or installations dating from 1967 physical process is an integral part of the work with the dialectical relationship between natural actions and those undertaken by the artist giving diverse form to matter, revealing its fantastical aspect. The tree, which Penone considers to be “the primary and simplest concept of vitality, of culture, of sculpture”, is a central element of his work. Since 1997, he has been a professor at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts de Paris and in 2007 he represented Italy at the 52nd Venice Biennale.