Konrad Fischer

Giuseppe Penone

09 Sep - 13 Nov 2011

© Giuseppe Penone
GIUSEPPE PENONE
Neue Arbeiten
9 September - 13 November, 2011

Konrad Fischer Galerie Berlin is pleased to announce the opening of our next exhibition with new works by Giuseppe Penone.

From the beginning the work of Giuseppe Penone, one of the most important artists of the Arte Povera movement, explored the relationship between man and nature using varied artistic means and focusing on different ideas. The interplay between surface and inner volume, the emphasis of the space between an object and the hands touching it are central aspects of Penone’s reflections on sculpture. Human skin becomes a landscape, the bark of a tree may turn into skin or the tiny space between a geometric object and the hands holding it can become the point of departure for his sculptures.

The works from the series‚ Geometria nelle mani contrast a perfect geometric shape made out of steel with rough shapeless forms cast in bronze. A series of photographs bearing the same title reveals the idea of the sculpture as they show negative prints of pairs of hands holding geometric shapes while the space between the object and the hands glows brightly in the center of the negative prints. It is this very space which is enlarged and cast in bronze. On top of this large bronze cast Penone placed the geometric shape in stainless steel which contains the negative space of the artist’s hands surrounding the geometric shape. As a whole Geometria nelle mani – ovale (2005) reveals complex relations between the negative and the positive, between touch, surface and volume and can be understood as a general reflection on the essentials of sculpture.

Included in the exhibition will be two works from the series Pelle di Grafite (2006) and the large Pelle di marmo which reveals the veins of a marble plate, seen in three dimensions and bearing an astonishing similiarity to the human physiognomy.
 

Tags: Giuseppe Penone