Rome, Giuseppe Penone's trees invade the Baths of Caracalla

Giuseppe Penone, one of Italy’s leading contemporary artists, makes his entrance at the Baths of Caracalla with a project that fits into the monument and its landscape. From June 7 to October 30, 2022, the Baths will in fact host Ideas of Stone. Giuseppe Penone in Caracalla, an intervention promoted by the Special Superintendence of Rome, directed by Daniela Porro, produced by Electa and curated by Francesco Stocchi.

This is not the first time that the Baths of Caracalla have hosted a contemporary art project. It all began in 2012, when Michelangelo Pistoletto executed and donated to the Soprintendenza the Third Paradise created with finds from the Baths themselves, and again in 2016 the artist from Biella created The Reintegrated Apple, in Carrara marble, placed on permanent display in the center of the ancient guard post for the caretaker-controller of the traffic of wagons, lumber and men engaged in running the complex machine of the Baths. The first exhibition in the strict sense, however, was in 2017, when Many, an exhibition by Antonio Biasiucci curated by Ludovico Pratesi, opened on October 19. Three more followed: in 2018 Mauro Staccioli. Sensitive Environmental, the first major retrospective; in the same year Omnia Flumina Romam Ducunt, an exhibition of sound architectures by Alvin Curran curated by RAM radioartemobile; and in 2019 Plessi a Caracalla: il segreto del tempo, an exhibition of visual installations by Fabrizio Plessi in the basement of the Baths, curated by Alberto Fiz. Penone’s is thus the fifth exhibition coming to the archaeological site.

The artist has chosen to include the four works in the tour of the Baths of Caracalla, placing them in the ancient natatio, where they will embrace the visitor as he or she walks through it. Identity (2019 - aluminum, bronze), Triplice (2011 - bronze, river stones), Ideas of Stone, Elm (2008 - bronze, river stones) and Ideas of Stone, Cherry Tree (2011 - bronze, river stones) are timeless trees but which time encompasses and tells through the artist’s work. According to Penone, the tree in nature with the passage of time becomes sculpture in itself, circle after circle etched into the trunk that counts the passage of years and centuries. Just as water smooths stones over the millennia, sculpting them. Penone thus shapes matter in a gesture that brings man closer to nature. The branches of Penone’s sculptures are thus shown in a context steeped in everyday life: the Antonine Baths, which were the Romans’ place of pleasure. That ancient life, and yet so modern, which took care of the hygiene of body and mind: it is in this socio-political space so evolved in spirit, a peculiarity of the Roman baths, that the contribution of the Piedmontese artist intends to integrate itself into the project launched some time ago by the Special Superintendence of Rome, which regularly welcomes contemporary art always attentive to the enhancement of the history of the monument.

“Contemporary art is at home at the Baths of Caracalla,” says the Special Superintendent of Rome, Daniela Porro, “as it was at the time of the Severan emperors, who adorned them with marvelous statues and decorations of great symbolic value, now scattered throughout the world in museums, buildings and public spaces. And it is precisely a world celebrated artist like Penone with Ideas of Stone that brings to the Baths a moment of reflection on man’s emblematic relationship with nature, space and time.”

“The tree is not allowed to forget,” Penone explained in one of his writings, “it is the contortions, its balance, the harmonious distribution of its masses, its static perfection, the freshness of its modeling, the purity of its structure combined with the compact character of its bronze surface, that make it a living sculpture.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a volume, entitled Respirare l’ombra, published by Electa. The volume collects the complete corpus of Giuseppe Penone’s writings, elaborated during his long career and, for the first time, published in Italy. Words, those of the artist, that help to enter the process-thinking of a work already in progress.

Giuseppe Penone (Garessio, 1947) lives and works in Turin. After artistic training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, he made his debut in 1968 in the field of arte povera, with research focused on nature and its processes of transformation. He presented actions, documented photographically, aimed at visualizing and modifying natural growth processes(Maritime Alps, 1968; Cycle of Trees, from 1969; Vegetable Gestures series, from 1984). The human body and its relations with the external environment are also the subject of the artist’s research, as he works with photographs, projections, imprints and casts of anatomical parts in various materials(Unfolding One’s Skin, from 1970; Pressure, from 1974; Eyelids, from 1978). In later works Penone has carried out the theme of contact between body and matter ( Soffi series, since 1978), presenting, modified, magnified or graphically elaborated, parts or imprints of the human body ( Propagazioni series, Terre d’ombra, Anatomie, since the mid-1990s). The tree, which Penone considers “the first and simplest idea of vitality, of culture, of sculpture,” is a central element in his work. His work, also accompanied by poetic texts of his own creation, has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions. In 2007 he represented Italy at the 52nd Venice Biennale; in 2013 he exhibited in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles; he has had solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2004), the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (2016), and the BNF in Paris (2021). Ongoing in New York at the Frick Collection is “Propagations: Giuseppe Penone at Sèvres.” A monographic exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is planned for the fall, as well as a project for the Couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette.

Pictured is a photo of the installation. Photo by F. Caricchia

Rome, Giuseppe Penone's trees invade the Baths of Caracalla

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