Public Installation
Giuseppe Penone
Desert X AlUla 2024
February 9–March 23, 2024
AlUla, Saudi Arabia
desertx.org
Giuseppe Penone’s sculpture La logica del vegetale – Metamorfosi (Vegetal Logic – Metamorphosis) (2024) is installed in an ancient desert canyon in the Arabian Peninsula as part of Desert X AlUla 2024. The 17-meter-tall (almost 56-foot-tall) cast bronze chestnut tree lies on its side with gnarled roots exposed, surrounded by pieces of fossilized trees, revealing the interdependence between sculpture and nature across geological time. This is the third edition of Desert X AlUla, a collaboration between Desert X and the Royal Commission for AlUla established to advance new cultural dialogue through art. Curated by Maya El Khalil and Marcello Dantas, the selection of works explores the theme “In the Presence of Absence” and asks the question “What cannot be seen?”
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Giuseppe Penone, La logica del vegetale – Metamorfosi (Vegetal Logic – Metamorphosis), 2024, installation view, AlUla, Saudi Arabia © Giuseppe Penone/2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
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Giuseppe Penone
Årets Konstnär 2024
Giuseppe Penone has been named 2024’s Artist of the Year by Prinsessan Estelles Kulturstiftelse (preks), a foundation established in 2019 by Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel and named for their daughter, Princess Estelle, with the mission of promoting cultural activities in the country. Every year, the chosen artist is invited to create a monumental, site-specific work to be permanently installed within Prinsessan Estelles Skulpturpark, a sculpture park at Royal Djurgården in Stockholm. Penone’s sculpture, The Inner Flow of Life (2022), will be unveiled on May 30, 2024.
Giuseppe Penone, Project for Royal Djurgaden, 2022 © Giuseppe Penone/2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: © Archivio Penone
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Giuseppe Penone
Hala Wardé
Wednesday, December 6, 2023, 6:30pm
Gagosian, 4 rue de Ponthieu, Paris
Please join Gagosian for a conversation between Giuseppe Penone and architect Hala Wardé inside Impronte di luce / Empreintes de lumière, an exhibition of new paintings by the artist inspired by his experience of Le Corbusier’s Couvent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette in Éveux, France. The longtime friends will discuss Penone’s latest body of work and their most recent collaboration for Louvre Abu Dhabi, where Wardé was partner architect and Penone was one of two artists commissioned to create site-specific permanent installations. They will also consider the creative exploration of space, form, and material inherent to both art and architecture, shedding light on the fascinating intersections that shape their collaborative efforts. The conversation will be conducted in French.
Giuseppe Penone, Impronte di luce (Imprints of Light), 2023 © Giuseppe Penone/2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Thomas Lannes
Honor
Giuseppe Penone
Académie des Beaux-Arts Foreign Associate Member
Giuseppe Penone has been elected a foreign associate member of the prestigious Académie des beaux-arts, one of five institutions comprising the Institut de France. Penone joins ten other foreign members, taking the seat previously held by the late Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow. The artist’s induction ceremony took place on October 18, 2023.
Dedicated to the fine arts, the Académie des beaux-arts encourages artistic creation and ensures the defense of France’s cultural heritage by awarding prizes to both emerging and recognized artists, organizing competitions, funding artist residencies, and granting aid to artistic projects, events, and associations. As an advisory body to the French public authorities, it is organized around the notion of multidisciplinarity, bringing together members within eight different artistic sections, foreign associate members, and corresponding members.
Giuseppe Penone during his induction into the Académie des beaux-arts, Paris, 2023. Photo: Edouard Brane
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