"'Arte Povera' is a term that was coined by Germano Celant in the late 1960s and used to describe the radical and anti-establishment art movement, humble in its materials, that was prominent for the following decade and for which Penone was an important figure. An emphasis was placed on the social and cultural shifts at the time, though Italy had, in this respect, never really found stability."
"As I enter, a skylight that seems as though it had been installed especially for this work beams down onto a tree stump. It is partially hollowed out with a small island of hacked wood emerging from its center. It looks like a crown or a city skyline; one that is surrounded by a sirupy moat of solidified amber tree sap."
Giuseppe Penone's Serpentine exhibition centers on trees, branches and organic matter to explore visibility, memory, and life-death interconnections tied to socioeconomic histories. The Arte Povera context emphasizes humble materials and responses to social and cultural shifts in post-unification Italy, where wealth concentrated in cities and rural areas signified poverty. Natural forms operate as symbols and instruments for imagining national unity and mediating differences. Works foreground extensions—visible trunks and branches—while what lies beneath remains hidden, suggesting that understanding of existence is mediated by visibility. Textural contrasts, sap, hollowed stumps and carved wood evoke bodily and civic metaphors of interiority and exposure.
Read at Berlin Art Link
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