SIMPLE THINGS AND NATURAL ACTIONS A Conversation with Giuseppe Penone OPPOSITE: PHILIPPE DE GOBERT BY KARLYN DE JONGH Opposite: Matrice di linfa, 2008. Fir tree, resin, terra cotta, leather, and metal, 127 x 4367 x 212 cm. Above: Idee di pietra, 2004 07. Bronze, steel, stones, and green oak, 1270 x 550 x 500 cm. Giuseppe Penone addresses the contact between man and nature. His conceptual and poetic work starts from tactile experience and attempts to understand and reflect on reality; it aims to use and reveal already existing forms and natural materials, such as wood and stone, in new ways. Persistence and duration are important qualities for him: natural materials live in the present, last through time, and frequently demonstrate our relatively short existence. According to Penone, man is nature, and nature itself would be the perfect work. But he adds that art is language and therefore imperfect: it is a means to affirm one s identity. Sculpture March 2011 25
Left: Un anno di bronzo, 2006. Cedar and bronze, 300 x 160 x 62 cm. Right: Respirare l ombra, 2001. Bronze and laurel leaves, 185 x 90 x 165 cm. Karlyn De Jongh: Your work seems to have a poetic rather than a conceptual quality, but it does touch on the concepts of time and existence. How do you see the relation between this poetic tendency and the concepts behind your work? Giuseppe Penone: A work of art that touches your existence must be both poetic and conceptual because life is something extraordinary and moving or it would not be life. Poetry shares this revealing and surprising character, and therefore the poetic conception of reality is existence. The word conceptual can be used in the sense of rationalizing emotion, rationalizing our amazement toward existence itself. The work of art conjoins these two things, puts them into relation, otherwise it would be incomplete. If an artwork were only conceptual, it would fall into dogmatic fact; if it were only poetic, and not rational, it would be life, pure emotion. Art is language, and by its very nature, it must relate the concept with the idea of poetry. KDJ: So, for you, a good artwork combines a poetic and a conceptual character? GP: Yes. The poetic and the conceptual are two elements that must live together, otherwise the work remains incomplete. At times, the conceptual aspect may be less evident than the emotional one, but this varies according to the artist. If these two components are missing, however, the work will lack linguistic strength, and above all, it will not last the test of time. It may function as a work of art, but only for a limited period. On the other hand, if the artwork is able to move people (though this emotional response is difficult to rationalize), it will remain alive and endure through time. KDJ: Why is it important to you that the work continue to live across time? GP: It is important for a simple reason. A work of art whether a painting, a sculpture, or an installation occupies a distinct space in a very specific location. In order to understand it, it is necessary to enter its space, to get physically close to it, and this requires time. The work must therefore include the possibility of lasting through time in order to allow people to see and understand it. If it does not last, there is the possibility of documentation, but documentation is always incomplete and can never replace the work itself. A photograph of a work is simply an image on a piece of paper. In contrast, raw materials such as wood, stone, and paint have a certain quality to them, intrinsic to the material itself. This quality can only be experienced directly and can t be mediated through filmic or photographic representation. Time is therefore an important element in art. We tend to create historical distinctions in art, between contemporary art, modern art, and so forth; yet when we show a contemporary artwork together with an older, historical work, both are contemporary experiences for the viewer. For a child who lacks historical consciousness, both works are contemporary. Perception is therefore tied to the present, and vision includes 26 Sculpture 30.2
Above and detail: Pelle di foglie, Sguardo a terra 3, 2007. Bronze, 280 x 200 x 100 cm. a cancellation of historical time. This implies that while these distinctions are necessary for art history, to an understanding of how things unfold, they are unnecessary for appreciation. In Venice, for example, ancient and modern elements co-exist: in Piazza San Marco, there are 12th- and 13th-century constructions alongside others from the 19th century, and when we see them, everything is contemporary, everything lives together in a single perceptual experience. The puzzle of time, of the distinction between contemporary and historical, is a problem of categorization related to the history of art, but it is not a real problem. KDJ: For your friend, the artist Lee Ufan, time seems to be infinite. Do you believe that time goes on forever? GP: No, time isn t infinite, because our point of view is very limited. The only certain thing is that we can understand very little. The history of human consciousness makes little sense, especially in scientific terms, because each new discovery cancels the value of the preceding way of thinking. The situation is different for art. Old works maintain their value today. This is because art is not about understanding reality in terms of physics or science, but in terms of life, an understanding of reality tied to human emotions and the human condition. For that reason, an old work can be interesting and astonishing now. For instance, when you go to Venice, you have to see Bellini. He is much more interesting than the pavilions during the Biennale. KDJ: Your works address human existence. Is it important to you to reach many people through your work? GP: It is, and at the same time, it is not. It s clear that when you make a work in which everyone recognizes themselves, it has an immediate diffusion, but its content is also quickly exhausted. To endure over time, an artwork must have a certain visual immediacy and simplicity so you can possess it. But there have to be other levels of interpretation, too in this way, you draw a series of parallel interpretations that amplify according to the cultural context, sensibility, and ability of the viewer. The work must to some degree allow viewers to make it their own, but it must also be surprising. If it doesn t surprise, it cannot communicate a message. Surprise helps with reflection. The Italian Baroque poet Cavalier Marino once said that wonder is the aim of the poet. The end of poetry is to create surprise. By creating surprise, things get remembered: the discovery of something that you have never seen before is a physical pleasure it stays with you. This Sculpture March 2011 27
Above: Elevazione, 2001. Bronze, 900 x 550 x 560 cm. Below: Tre pietre, 2006. Bronze, steel, and stone, 3 elements, 7.5 x 20 x 14 in. each. is an essential element of the artwork, and it can be created in different ways. Duchamp creates surprise just by placing a banal industrial element in a different context. In appearance, the form of the object remains the same. The surprise is in its relocation to an unconventional place. KDJ: You have said that touch is the direct relation of the body with reality. One can be more precise in one s understanding of what surrounds us. It is often claimed that the senses deceive us: a straight stick looks bent when it s partially submerged in water. To what extent do the senses show reality? Do you consider touch to be the common way of experiencing the world? GP: My work is based on simple elements, and it is above all a sculptural practice. It is not a work of representation, but of materials. The concept evolved in the 1960s, a time when many social, artistic, and poetic values were questioned, as well as conceptions of reality. The debate surrounding values, and the craving to understand the new world view after the war, led to an absolute reduction of values and a desire to begin from the most elementary and basic forms. During those years, artists dealt with this in different ways. Minimalism also did this, starting from the essential form of things and building from it. I began by focusing on touch and sight in an elementary way, starting from the idea that when you touch something, you leave an image not a cultural image but an animal kind of image. This is an image that anyone can leave: only subsequent elaboration can bring meaning and make the image a work of art. On its own and in itself, this initial image belongs to everyone, not to the artist. It is an animal image, automatic. Breath is analogous: when you breathe, you release a different volume of air into your surroundings, and that volume is sculpture. The meaning of sculpture is exactly this: to create a form within a space. Breathing, therefore, is creating sculpture automatically. I use breath as an example to underline the elementary aspect of this gesture. My work stems from these considerations simple things and actions such as the act of touching, opening the eyes, and defining the body itself as sculpture. KDJ: But is touch the most important of the senses for you? GP: Our concept of reality is based on many aspects. Touch is very important in sculpture. By touching the work, you can understand the medium, you can define the space and the volume of the object, but touch is, above all, a way to verify form. If I were to ask you what distance there is between you and the wall, you could only give me an approximate measurement. In order to understand the actual distance, you have to cover it physically. The same thing applies to materials: when TOP: PIETER VANDERMEER / BOTTOM: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY, NY 28 Sculpture 30.2
Above and detail: Lo spazio della scultura, corteccia, 2004. Bronze and leather, 128 x 191 x 15 cm. Right: Biforcazione, 1991. Bronze, hydraulic mechanism, and water, detail of outdoor work. TOP: ALEX DELFANNE, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND FRITH STREET GALLERY / BOTTOM: PHILIPPE DE GOBERT you see a shiny object, it could be a solid or a liquid; in order to verify the material, you must touch it. This demonstrates that sight is deceptive, a convention. A child first learns to touch, then to see. When you need to verify something, it is necessary to touch it sight isn t enough. The tactile sense is very important. With touch, there is a greater adhesion to the truth. KDJ: You mentioned the Venice Biennale. At the 2007 Biennale, you presented a work in which you covered the bark of trees with leather. The cow hide took the shape of the bark. You have described skin as a boundary, a border, or dividing point. What does skin divide? How do you view this inbetween space? And how does the leather represent our skin when it touches the surface of an object? GP: This is a problem that concerns sculpture in a fundamental way. When you touch something, your hand takes the form of the surface that you touch. If the surface is in relief, your skin reflects that relief, but there is always a space between your body and the touched surface. The leather-covered log is an attempt to show this. By following the surface of the log with your hand, you discover the form. Covering this same surface with leather, which is similar to human Sculpture March 2011 29
skin, is an attempt to relate matter to the act of touching. The log becomes animal itself. The intention was to emphasize a fundamental aspect of sculpture in other words, to distinguish the perception of form through touch. KDJ: You have made several works, including 10-Meter Tree (1989), in which you return wood to its original state. There, you split a single timber beam, removed the bark from the two halves, and used a chain saw and chisel to peel away the growth rings until you reached the internal skeleton of narrow core and developing branches. You told me that the tree manifests happenings in nature. By removing the rings of the tree, you seem to be able to go back in time. How do you understand your artworks in this respect? Do you see them as traces? What traces do you yourself leave behind? GP: To recover the form of the tree inside the mass of the wood is an action of sculpture. This idea came after I had worked with the growth of trees by modifying their forms through my actions. Considering how trees record their experiences within their growth, I thought that these trees would contain traces of my gestures. I then transferred this idea to blocks of wood, thinking that I could rediscover the form of the tree inside the wood. In 1968 69, I used industrial beams. The idea was to discover the lost characteristics inside a material and a form. Wood equals material; wood equals forest. I wanted to find the forest inside the material wood. For me, it was a gesture of imagination and a way to uncover an aspect of a material that is sometimes taken for granted. Each of these works reveals things about the life of the tree; every tree has its history, its individuality. Many small events can be understood through observation: damage caused by lightning, the action of an animal, of man, of snow many small things that are part of the existence of this being. We could say that it is a metaphor for human existence, but that is only a mental transposition. My work doesn t have an aim; I don t want to add other meanings. I use the tree as a material, not as a symbolic element. KDJ: In an interview, you discuss your fingerprint drawings. You say that the sheets of paper are an extension of your skin in space. Above and detail: Scrigno, 2008. Leather panels, bronze, and vegetal resin, 115.5 x 219.5 in. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY, NY 30 Sculpture 30.2
TOP: PAOLO MUSSAT SARTOR / BOTTOM: PETER COX How do you understand this extension? Are your works extensions of your skin? Is the skin an intermediate since it is the only place where inside and outside can touch? GP: If you think of all the things that you touch throughout your existence, you cover an enormous surface. To indicate this extension of existence seems to me to be something connected to making art. Then there is another thing linked to touch: when you touch something, you leave prints that are continuously removed because they are considered dirty. We spend most of our lives canceling our traces, when in reality, these marks affirm our existence. This is a contradiction, and I think it s important to consider because art is an affirmation of its own existence through images. If you observe the lines that make up the pattern of your skin, you notice that the surface is similar to the bark of the tree, ripples in water, the veins within stone. The drawings extend the lines of the print until they form a circle continuing into space, an expansion model that corresponds to the growth of a tree, the propagation of sound, or the propagation of waves when you touch water with a finger. The intention was to represent a print that contained this idea of propagation, linking it to the concept of all the things touched during our existence. KDJ: In Essere fiume (To be a river, 1981), you took a stone, made a replica, and returned it to its original location. How do you compare your artistic practice with that of nature or with the influence of time on nature? Are you a catalyst? How does this relate to your ideas about indicating what is already existent? GP: Essere fiume originated with a knowledge of stone sculpture. When you carve a stone, you produce a certain action; when you hit its surface with water, or against another stone, your actions are similar to those that occur in the river. My intention was to repeat, or underscore, the action of the river, which is analogous to that of the sculptor when he works with stone. Reproducing a river stone with the techniques of stone sculpting, I repeated the actions of the river. Making stone sculptures is therefore like being the river it is a bit like following the rules of nature. I identify with a natural force like the flow Top: Geometria nelle mani, 2005. Bronze and stainless steel, 3 elements, 134 x 153 x 173 cm. each. Above: Nelle mani, 2005 07. Bronze and stainless steel, 3 elements, 125 x 165 x 145 cm. each. of a river, with natural elements like the river or the trees. I made two identical stones in this work. If I make a head, a face, on a stone, it is considered sculpture, but if I make a stone from a stone, it does not have any cultural value; it remains a stone, especially if it is made realistically. By placing the two stones side by side, the language of the sculpture is created. There is a double thing. From a philosophical and ideal perspective, a perfect work would be to put the stone made by the artist in the river not in the gallery, but in nature. This situation becomes universal, and my action becomes like that of the river. But art is a language and therefore imperfect, while the perfect work of art re-enters into logic and therefore is not language. What I mean is that art is like a language. If you produce a stone, which is very well done, this is the perfect object since it is in relation with the other things of the universe. But it is a stone, and you cannot understand that it was made by a man. Art is an attempt to affirm your identity with other people, it is a kind of communication, a language. It is not perfect, it is never perfect. Karlyn De Jongh is a writer and curator based in the Netherlands. Sculpture March 2011 31