Penone at Villa Medici

On Tuesday 29th January 2008 the Académie de France in Rome hosted the opening of an important show dedicated to an internationally famous Italian artist and a protagonists of Arte Povera, Giuseppe Penone. Born in 1947, with roots in Turin and a life in Paris, Penone has long been recognised abroad, and now, given the recent invitation to the Venice Biennial, by experts in Italy too. Therefore, all credit for bringing his works to Rome goes to the French cultural institution. The works, exhibited along a route especially conceived for the environments of Villa Medici, occupy all of the spaces at the academy: the galleries, the Roman cistern, the Atelier del Bosco and the gardens. Indeed, the magnificent 16th century residence has been used by the artist as a landscape scene that the visitors have been able to interpret as whole. In this way, the curator of the show, Richard Peduzzi, and the artist himself, have tried to give an additional meaning to the works, which can be judged individually, in their autonomy and independence, or together by the standards of an overall work of art. All of the works displayed came from private collections, from the artist’s personal collection and from the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art