Giuseppe Penone - The Great Wonderful: 100 Years of Italian Art New York Wednesday, May 13, 2015 | Phillips

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  • Video

    Property from A Private American Collection: Giuseppe Penone

    “…The tree, when it moves in space changes shape. It preserves the memory of the gesture he makes.” - Giuseppe Penone, 2004 The work of Giuseppe Penone is as multifaceted and mysterious as the natural world from which he draws his genius. One of the greatest and most important sculptors to emerge in the twentieth century, Penone, through his handling of various mediums, lifts a veil to reveal objects that uncover the obscurities by which we are confounded and mesmerized in the world.

  • Provenance

    Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    The work of Giuseppe Penone is as multifaceted and mysterious as the natural world from which he draws his genius. Through his handling of various media, he lifts a veil to expose the obscurities by which we are confounded and mesmerized in the world. He actively and successfully sought to investigate the intimate and daring space between art and nature. Since 1969, Penone has been one of the foremost figures of the Arte Povera movement, which emphasized a fundamental break with conventional artistic mediums. Penone selected organic material as his chosen medium and concentrated in particular on the qualities, both aesthetically and intrinsically, of the tree. The tree, like the human figure, grows vertically with expansive arms and a tall crown, however instead of walking freely the tree remains rooted to the earth. Trees have persisted as a central theme for Penone, inspired early on by the forests near his home in Turin, Italy and Idee di pietra represents a magnificent monument for the artist. The tree, expressive, and while not ambulatory certainly upwardly mobile, resists the mass of the stone, the idea of gravity, of the weight of the world. Penone has transformed his usual natural wooden support into one of bronze, mimicking the organic form with which he is most closely associated. The result is jarring and revelatory, expressive and contemplative, a perfect amalgamation of the conceits which have been driving the artist’s production since its inception.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION

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Idee di pietra

2003-07
bronze tree, grey granite river stone
overall dimensions 322 x 132 x 108 in. (817.9 x 335.3 x 274.3 cm)
installed height 300 1/2 in. (763.3 cm)

Signed and dated "G. Penone 2006" on the base. This work is accompanied by installation instructions.

Estimate
$1,500,000 - 2,500,000 

Sold for $1,325,000

Contact Specialist
Brittany Lopez Slater
Head of International Exhibitions
New York
+1 212 940 1299

Carolina Lanfranchi
Specialist
Milan
+39 338 924 1720

The Great Wonderful: 100 Years of Italian Art

New York 13 May 2015 4pm