Turner Prize 1989 artists: Giuseppe Penone

Italian sculptor and conceptual artist. He created his earliest works in a forest outside Garessio in 1968. He marked his presence there with an iron hand gripping a tree trunk; trees pierced by nails and laced with metal wire; and a plaster slab measuring his width and height and the depth of a brook.

Giuseppe Penone
Tree of 12 Metres (1980–2)
Tate

© Archivio Penone

A member of the Arte Povera group, he continued throughout his career to explore the connections between natural and cultural forms. In 12-meter Tree he carefully carved into a beam of wood to recover the original form of a tree, leaving part of the beam untouched to signify its status as a manmade object.

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