Magic touch: Giuseppe Penone’s tactile sculptures at Marian Goodman gallery
Giuseppe Penone has worked with wood for most of his illustrious career. His first pieces were made in a forest outside of his home town of Garessio in 1968, and he is best known for his Tratterne series, in which a bronze hand is cast onto a living tree. It's fitting, then, that London's Marian Goodman Gallery has been transformed into a dreamlike forest for a new survey of the Italian artist's conceptual work.
The ghostly white space is punctuated by sculptural trees, a wall of dark laurel leaves and ramshackle assemblages of broken branches. It feels like stepping into a woodland scene from a fairytale – the moral of which questions our place within the eco-system, and asks us how the human hand imprints upon the natural world.
Throughout, there's a tug-of-war going on between natural and man-made materials. Tree bark gives way to pristine white marble; a cage of branches is topped with smooth terracotta tiles; clear thumb-prints are left in a line of clay portraits of Penone's daughter. An imposing canvas covered in a freeform scattering of Acacia thorns sways it – manufactured materials have surrendered to the organic ones. This overpowering is aided by the heady, almond-purfume from the laurel leaves that swirls around the gallery, inducing visitors into zen-like state.
Penone once said, 'Tactile perception brings us closer to the present.' Marian Goodman have taken this concept, and nurtured it. One leaves the London space as if having spent the day in a spa; more mindful because of Penone's own mindfulness. A parallel exhibition in Marian Goodman's Paris outpost continues to peel back the layers of Penone's fascinating and continuing ouevre. If it's anything like the therapeutic London show, it will be well worth a visit.
Information
'Giuseppe Penone: Fui, Sarò, Non Sono (I was, I will be, I am not)' runs from 8 September to 22 October at Marian Goodman Gallery, London. For more information, visit the website
Photography courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery
Address
5-8 Lower John St, London W1F 9DY
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.
-
Feel at home at Auberge, Château La Coste's new inn for culture lovers
Auberge La Coste sits at the heart of the art-filled estate, minutes away from the joyful town of Aix-en-Provence
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
This Nova Lima apartment is a Brazilian family oasis with striking Minas Gerais views
A Nova Lima apartment designed by Jacobsen Arquitetura celebrates its long, natural Minas Gerais vistas
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published