Giuseppe Penone on 50+ Years of Imprints and Nature

In an interview with Artribune, Giuseppe Penone reflects on his career spanning over 50 years, focusing on his recent exhibition 'Impronte di luce' at Fondazione Ferrero in Alba. The show featured 183×183 cm canvases in 63 colors from Le Corbusier's palette, with enlarged handprints. Penone discusses his 1968 work 'Continuerà a crescere tranne che in quel punto', a steel hand on a growing tree trunk, which introduced the concept of time and passive sculpture. He connects his practice to prehistoric handprints in Chauvet Cave, seeing them as affirmations of existence. Penone explains his choice of Le Corbusier's colors stems from his 2022 exhibition at the Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, where he saw the architecture as a tree canopy. He describes his process of frottage on the convent's surfaces to reconstruct an arboreal form. Penone emphasizes his collaborative approach with nature, where materials like leaves and thorns actively participate in creation, contrasting with the art world's historical neglect of nature.