2001

Nella ascelle delle spine le gemme, sulle punta delle spine la pelle (Buds in the Crooks of Thorns, Flesh at the Tips of the Thorns)

Italian, born 1947

Penone grew up in an agricultural region in the Italian Piedmont, and his early familiarity with mountains and forests has continued to affect his art. Part of a movement that since the late 1960s has sought to blur the distinctions between natural and manmade phenomena, he often includes organic elements in his works, such as tree trunks, branches, and leaves. Here the artist draws with exquisite precision a budding acacia branch placed beneath thorn-pierced imprints of the palm and back of his hand.