Giuseppe Penone is a contemporary artist associated with the Arte Povera art movement. He reinvented sculpture, drawing, conceptual photography, art installation, through proto environmental art with the sensibility of a late late romantic.
Curator and art critic Germano Celant created the term #artepovera in 1967 to highlight a tendency toward a use of reduced material or idea to its archetype. How does Penone fit into that notion? He seems to have had a singular place in the Italian and global Western art canon of the time, using organic growth as an art process that the artist mirrors, plays and aligns with. Have we been forcing a dialogue between his work and Celant’s concept? What other relations with memory and matter has he expanded through his work? Was he a pioneer of eco-art? A late romantic? All of the above?
Artist Diogo Pimentão is my co-host for the first time. As ever, I’ll introduce the artist and he’ll take us through this small retrospective exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.
Curated by Claude Adjil, Curator at Large, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, with Alexa Chow, Assistant Exhibitions Curator.
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I'm Joanna Pyroneves, your host, and this is exhibitionist this
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I'm an independent writer and curator with a wide-ranging 2
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decades career in contemporary art, from commercial galleries
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to art fairs, from research to curating, from Lisbon to London
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through Paris. When I'm asked what I do outside
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the outworld, the inevitable reaction is, oh, I don't know
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anything about contemporary art. Ouch.
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So call it a midlife crisis, call it arrogance, but I gave
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myself the task of trying to fill that gap with Co host
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conversation Episodes centered around a genuine exchange of
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thoughts, feelings and precious context around solo exhibitions,
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interviews and special episodes based on a particular topic to
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keep you alert and on your toes. If you want to read further into
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some of the topics discussed in the episodes and more, you can
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also find me on Sub Stack under my name, Joanna Pyroneves.
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This is an episode where we discuss the work of an artist
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through their solo exhibition and today we're talking about
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artist Giuseppe Pinone. So in the first part I will take
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you and my Co hosts through his career and after the break you
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get to visit the exhibition with us.
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You can go on Spotify or YouTube for video, or you can go to our
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Instagram account where I usually post clips of my
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exhibition visits and also share exhibition views.
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There's also some cats Terruption clips and if you
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don't know what that is, I really urge you to go and check
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them out. Our newsletter is also worth
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signing up for. You can go to
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exhibitionistspodcast.com on our homepage and you'll know what
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the next episode is going to be about.
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You can get reading suggestions, some facts about exhibition
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spaces and much more. So as I said, the artist we were
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talking about today is Giuseppe Penone and his exhibition
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Thought in the Roots. My Co host today is a newcomer.
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He is the first full blown artists established artist that
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we have in the podcast. His name is Diogo Pimentel.
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He's an innovator in the field of drawing and he takes it to
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video performance and volume and much more.
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But for Full disclosure, I also have to tell you that he is my
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husband. So we're ready to talk about the
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exhibition. Welcome to the podcast Yoga for
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the First Time. Oh, lovely to meet you.
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To me, meet this persona. So Giuseppe Penone, I learned a
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lot about him. He was, well, first of all, he
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was born into a family of farmers.
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So already you can see that he's really connected to
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historically, even to the soil, to the earth.
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I'm so happy you're talking about that because I know the
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work. I'm close to some of the works,
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not all of it. I'm still discovering.
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It's incredible. It's very prolific, but I don't
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know much about his background. We can predict there's closeness
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to nature, probably raised in nature.
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But by all means, sorry, I just cut your.
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No, I love your enthusiasm. So he was born into this family
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farmers, and he grew up in the town of Garcia.
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So it's in the Pimon region of Italy, so north of Italy, near
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the Ligurian Alps. And he was really in an area of
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Europe that is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.
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And it has all aspects of what you can imagine Central Europe
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to be in terms of landscape, in terms of the elements.
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So you have the river. So the river traverses.
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I think it's the. Outskirts of Alps, right?
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So maybe even with the mountains, all the rivers, the
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fresh waters and wow. Exactly.
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Freshwater forests. So even in the city, you have
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the Aqua San Bernardo, which is supposed in Italy, famous for
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its healing properties. And also, I mean, Garcia is
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described as being one of the most beautiful cities of Italy.
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It's all stone, old buildings, all churches.
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And he also had a grandfather. He was a sculptor.
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So he describes his house as being full of busts sculpted by
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his granddad. And his mom was also quite
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artistic. So from the age of 6 onward, she
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really encouraged them to draw. So he wasn't completely
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disconnected from this idea of art because you can have this
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notion of him being, I mean, he's 100 kilometers South of
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Torino, but he is also engaged somehow with the idea of art of
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or being an artist. I see introduced to it by
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different generation as well. Exactly.
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And at 16 he was near a river and he looked into it and he saw
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those rocks, you know, those, those little stones inside the,
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the, the river. And he decided to draw each
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stone in that body of water he was connecting to the
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singularity of each and every element, so each unity through
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drawing and also through a systematic scope of relating to
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something via the eye, so via observation.
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It's a great story, the stone one trying to draw each one of
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them. He reminds me of aesthetic
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teacher at art school. He was as a child, he was
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sitting down with the sea and he was with rocks destroying
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seashells and with other smaller rocks as well.
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And then an adult came asking what what are you doing?
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And he said I'm making sand because he realized that the
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sand was composed with all, you know, those little elements,
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broken shells. And but then you look around
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you, you are sitting in sand. You don't need more.
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What are you adding to the equation?
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But it reminded me that's kind of but it will.
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Be his sand. You have made those 3 grains of.
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Sand and we Pannoni trying to draw all.
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That's a beautiful story. It's a beautiful story and it's
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also kind of brings to mind a very romantic relation with
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thoughts. So romantic slash ecological.
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I think your friend's story is interesting as well, because I
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was asking myself, is he connected to Romanticism?
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I mean, Romanticism appeared at the end of the 18th century as
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this turmoil, you know, the the Napoleonic Wars and the the
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Industrial Revolution and this need to be revolutionary and to
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take your destiny into your own hands.
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When you're feeling that the world is huge, societies
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developing the systems of power are dissipating and being
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questioned and you're not seeing new ones arriving there are
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quite satisfactory. And so there was this need of
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like, gathering your strengths and also trying to reinvent
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yourself, and this notion of individualistic need of rebuild
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something and rebuild a connection with nature, right?
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It's Artipovera before it it happened somehow.
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You're already describing what they did.
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Yeah, Povera is being kind of a sort of a continuation of that
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romanticism. First computers appearing, you
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know, in Torino, it was the Fiat City, but also the workers at
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the the automobile industry were not satisfied in what it was.
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The end of the Sixties, 1968, all of that revolutionary
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sentiment coming up again. In 1966, he enrolled in the Art
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Academy of Torino, but he dropped out a year later.
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And his account of that year is that he was much more interested
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in the work that he was seeing in galleries there, namely the
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Artipo Vera artist. So Gilberto Zorio, who I think
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for me is the dreamer, Giovanni Anselmo, and you know, all these
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artists that were christened as Artipo Vera artists by Germano
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Cheland in 1967. So during that year, in an
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exhibition that he curated in Genoa when Chelant was 27 years
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old. So Chelant was born in 1940.
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He was 27 at the time. 27. He was 27, right?
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That's kind of bonkers. And so Chelant coined this term,
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and I think we can kind of, like, open the parenthesis here.
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Who was Chelant? You know, who was this
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character? So he was a towering figure in
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the Italian and international arts panorama as a curator and
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an art critic, born in 1940. As I said, he passed away in
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2020 from COVID when he was 79. His that.
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Yeah, that's quite sad. And his legacy, well, it's quite
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controversial because he was a very kind of, he was a character
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and he was part of that group of curators, all male mostly, who
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were these bigger than life, you know, figures like Harold Zeman.
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Curators at the time had this kind of monolithic power, you
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know, in contrast with today where you have so many curators,
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you have groups of curators working together.
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It was kind of a patriarchal structure.
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You know that is is what I'm trying to say and I will say it.
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So no, and I do agree and I romanticize and I was, you know,
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learning to admire that moment as well.
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So many artists, women artists, working at the same time, with
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them, next to them and not mentioned.
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This is also a big account and why the conversation of what is
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the role of the curator and especially what is the role of
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the institutional curator? Are you there to leave your mark
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or are you there to be the person who represents a whole
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segment of your time in terms of creativity?
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So chill and Corey Anderson described them was said that he
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looked like Zorro. So he was also the senior
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curator of the Guggenheim from 1890, 2008 and then he worked
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for the Prada Foundation in Milano until his death.
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Chalanti. Chalanti was with his sword
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making peace. The Povera not Zeds from Zorro.
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OK. AP Arte Povera, when he coined
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the time in 60-7 and then in 69 added Pinoni to the group.
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That didn't last for a very long time.
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So in the beginning of the 70s, he sort of discarded the notion,
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said that it was over, and then in the 80s went back to it again
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and said, OK, this is really something that is valid in terms
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of a prism that you can use to look at the art that is made
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being made today. The term is very poorly.
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Poorly. No pun intended.
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Yes. Chosen because it doesn't really
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communicate or convey very well the idea.
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Because it wasn't poor art. I mean, there was a lot of
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Carrara marble. There was a lot of industrial
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neon materials. The only thing that probably
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they had, it was not that we considered high end materials.
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It's marble and quahara, but quahara, it's in Italy.
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So for them was probably something just, you know.
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Maybe cheap? Rock from the exactly?
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Local resource. Local resource.
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So that's that's one thing in arty povery there was this
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promised modernization that they were against.
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So they were working on this idea of anti production.
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But like you said, it's dubious because some of the materials
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came from industry as well. It almost seems like the name
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was like the impressionists named to destroy them and then
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adopted. But here was more.
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The name was given by the. A person.
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Praising them actually, you know, seeing these things
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appearing. So do you want to know how
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challans? Do you know find OK?
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Oh, so you were keeping it to the end?
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Yes, of course. OK, so artworks that are taking
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away, so quote, taking away eliminating down, grading things
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to a minimum, impoverishing signs to reduce them to their
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archetypes. End of quote.
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So the idea of archetype, I think is really important here.
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And I think he's being a bit provocative with this idea of
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impoverishing science, because bringing to the archetype is
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really the definition of classic philosophy, which is the
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principle. I think with the notion of the
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archetype. There is something in there for
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Pennone as well. I think.
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So a weird thing about Pennone is that he was in Torino,
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discovers these artists that he was so excited by that he
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discarded his studies and really focused on finding out what
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current artists were doing. And so you would think that he
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would stay in Torino, but he dropped out a year into his
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studies and went back, which was the foundational archetypical,
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let's say, relation to art making for him.
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He has these four years or even 2 to three years that are
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incredibly prolific. So I propose to go over these
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five works that for me relates to the topic of the environment.
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So the mountain, the forest, which again takes me to that
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idea of romanticism. Then there is the other element
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which is incredibly important, the tree.
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There are other elements in his environment other than the tree.
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There's the river, there is the stone, there's the leaves,
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there's the soil as well in some ways.
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But I think the tree really is and, and it is in actuality the
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title of one of these lines of research that he continues to
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pursue currently. It is really this main topic for
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him. And then there is the body as a
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means of enhanced or shifted kinds of perception, which also
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leads me to this more ecological sense of needing to understand
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how the environment grows around us, how it's in constant flow,
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what our body can do to dissipate the indifference
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that's somehow this immediacy of the senses instills in US.
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Once you told me that one of your favorite pieces of Pannoni
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was that idea of the body into the clay.
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I remember going to the permanent exhibition of the
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collection at the Santo Pompidou and just having this moment with
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a work that was a sort. It was clay and it was human
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sized and in the shape of, let's say a drop.
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So it narrows at the the tip at the at the level of the head.
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So from afar, it seems like someone put their hands in the
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clay in the bigger, wider body and took apart the clay, opened
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it. And so the edges of that side,
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so the other side is round, but this side, the edges, you could
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see the hands grabbing the clay and, and, and so it stayed.
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Of course it's rigid. And then inside that space that
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was created, there's an imprint of a body that finishes at the
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top with the mouth. So he put his mouth on the edge,
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the tip of that drop of clay and bit into it.
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And the sculpture, when I read the title as being Breath
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transformed completely the relation to the material, which
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I saw as something that contains water, contains drops, bubbles
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of oxygen, contails, carbon dioxide, contains minerals and
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is in constant flow. And in some ways, it was so
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funny that by rigidifying the breath, it's alerted me to the
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flow, to that vividness of the material.
00:17:03
So that was, yeah. So he goes back and he, the
00:17:08
first thing he does is that he goes into the environment,
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outdoors, nature, and he takes pictures of himself or has
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someone taking pictures of several actions that he does
00:17:20
outside. So he gathers all this series
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into under the name of Maritime Alps.
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So what he does is, for example, you see a photo of him embracing
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a tree trunk, arms and legs around it, lift it from the
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ground, and then another photo next to it of the same tree
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trunk from the same angle with something marking the placement
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of his body. And I think it looks like metal
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wires, but I can't be sure. There's also a gridded cage that
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he takes into nature next to water and it also has a bell
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pepper and a cauliflower sort of rigidified by cement on top of
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it. And that'll then it's placed
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onto a tree that will sort of lift it as it grows.
00:18:07
That's a fantastic work. There's this part of them that
00:18:11
is titled Maritime Alps. It will continue to grow except
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at that point. And the one that I'm going to
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mention now is the crucial one that is very much relating or
00:18:23
highlighting this notion of intercepting growth and
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interacting with it. So this is a diptych of
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photographs. One is Pinone grabbing a tree
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trunk. So you see his hand and half of
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his forearm. And then next to it you see a
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bronze casts, so bronze sculpture of his hand.
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So the same thing hands half of the forearm indented into the
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tree trunk and immobilized in it, so incorporated in the tree
00:19:03
that is going to grow around it. Very emblematic piece.
00:19:09
Do you know the date? This is between 67 and 69.
00:19:14
The next work that I'm going to talk about is very simply called
00:19:20
Alberi. So it's trees.
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It means trees in Italian. Pannoni also said the sculptor
00:19:25
must allow themselves to descend to the ground, lowering their
00:19:30
body slowly without haste. The hands, The bronze sculpture
00:19:39
that we call sculpture fixed to the tree.
00:19:43
What is the sculpture? What finishes the sculpture if
00:19:46
not the growing of the tree around the hand as well, making
00:19:53
us think that the hand is pressing?
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The hand did not press. The hand is made on the soft,
00:19:58
you know, holding something else, but then it's attached and
00:20:02
then the beautiful of the image. After a few years, it's like you
00:20:06
were saying, it's the tree that it's actually sculpting.
00:20:09
And Pannoni knows that, of course, not knowing the exact
00:20:14
outcome. Of you know what it would be is
00:20:17
letting the tree sculpt. So I want to move on to another
00:20:22
work which was also produced in 1970, which was prove chaire E
00:20:28
Proprioki. So reversing ones eyes, artists
00:20:32
of this generation who are not performers particularly did
00:20:36
perform at some point. And I think these performative
00:20:40
gestures in artists who are not performers are even more
00:20:43
interesting to look at because they really wanted to bring
00:20:47
something home. It's the work that brought me
00:20:49
close to Panone. It was a photograph of Panone's
00:20:53
face wearing mirrored contact lenses.
00:20:58
Later on I knew I found out that it was from a performance that
00:21:02
he did. Wearing the mirrored lenses.
00:21:05
Mirrored lenses, yes. That basically subverts what
00:21:09
would be the use of contact lenses because it blinds the
00:21:12
artists and reverts to the spectator what the person
00:21:18
wearing the lenses would have been looking at.
00:21:20
And there's even, I think in that, that single image, you can
00:21:23
see the photographer on his eyes, which is really uncanny.
00:21:27
I saw it as also reverting not only the eyes or what he was
00:21:31
seeing because he's no longer seeing, he's looking inside.
00:21:35
But it's a good way to hide to what's the best way to hide even
00:21:40
nowadays, right, with AI and all the security measures with, you
00:21:44
know, reading your eye and being able to identify you through
00:21:48
your eye. I don't know where you're going,
00:21:50
but I'm interested. OK, so.
00:21:53
So no, he was, he was hiding his himself behind those lenses
00:21:58
somehow. Not, not so much.
00:22:00
It's not so much a portrait of his beautiful face, posture and
00:22:05
presence, I would say, but it's it's about is is behind it.
00:22:10
It's a it's a way to work from the inside.
00:22:15
And I think that's what actually touched me when I was a young
00:22:20
artist producing, was this idea of almost with no action or
00:22:25
doing almost nothing, hiding behind your own work, showing
00:22:29
what it should be showing or what you actually look and see.
00:22:33
Because those mirrored lenses reflect the nature or what he
00:22:38
was supposed to look at. And so it bring, it brings
00:22:43
himself inside. I know.
00:22:45
And you told me that you taught me that he could see a little
00:22:48
bit through. There were little holes in the
00:22:51
lenses, so he wasn't completely blinded by wearing by wearing.
00:22:56
Yeah, a while ago. And it's about this membrane
00:23:00
that separates us from the outside world and the membrane
00:23:04
of our skin, right? That's, it's he, he, he says
00:23:09
that it's also where we recognize ourselves.
00:23:12
It's, it's, it's that membrane, it's without from that to
00:23:17
inside. That's where we recognize
00:23:19
ourselves in this, in this world, what we are as person.
00:23:23
So it's about this connectivity, knowing that there is a
00:23:26
separation, but also a recognition of also where, where
00:23:32
we are, right? Yes, he wore the lenses in
00:23:37
Spironet's gallery during Hamish Fulton's exhibition.
00:23:43
Then he did so again on October 6th of 1970 along the banks of
00:23:50
the river Poe Poe Poe in February 23.
00:23:55
In 1971 he performed in Piazza di Spana in Rome, so meaning
00:24:04
that he wore the lenses in the company of Gilberto, Zorio and
00:24:09
Site Wombley and a few days later in on the 28th of February
00:24:14
he wore them on the train from Cheva to Savannah.
00:24:18
And then he wore the lenses again on the 23rd of March at
00:24:22
the Gallery Pole Men's in Cologne, and again in May 26th
00:24:27
at the Kunsfahain in Munich at the opening of a group show in
00:24:32
which he participated, which was an Arti Povera show.
00:24:36
So this really was performative. And there's also an emphasis for
00:24:42
him on the skin and the skin as as Bach for us, like the skin of
00:24:49
the tree. And this, our skin is not that
00:24:51
different. It's an interface between the
00:24:54
body and, like you were saying, the outside world.
00:24:59
And I think he becomes, he becomes the sculpture.
00:25:01
I don't know if it's a moment of realization for him or just for
00:25:04
myself, but he's he becomes the sculpture.
00:25:08
I wanted to bring up a work that will make sense in the show as
00:25:11
well. Again from the 1970s, which is
00:25:15
vulgere or vulgere la propia Pele.
00:25:19
So to unroll one's skin. It is a sequence of photographs
00:25:24
in the beginning, and then it's going to become something else.
00:25:26
So he uses ink and transparent film of some kind.
00:25:30
Imagine if you had Scotch tape and then like, but wider.
00:25:36
And that you would, you know, put that Scotch tape on your
00:25:39
cheek, cheek or on your nose. But your cheek would be dirty
00:25:43
with probably powder or graphite.
00:25:45
Or ink, ink of some kind and it leaves the imprint.
00:25:50
So the ink, thank you, serves to mark that impression again,
00:25:55
that's this is one of the things that is so important in his
00:25:58
work, which is the imprint. But asperities almost like the
00:26:03
tree like you were saying Exactly.
00:26:05
You can't actually see it. But with that imprint system,
00:26:08
you see how? The pores and.
00:26:11
Pores the breathing, Absolutely yes.
00:26:14
And so, he says, quotes the skin, like the eye is a boundary
00:26:20
element, the endpoint capable of dividing and separating us from
00:26:26
what surrounds us, the final points capable of physically
00:26:31
enveloping enormous expenses. It is the point that allows me
00:26:37
still and after all, to recognize myself.
00:26:41
Exactly. End of quote.
00:26:43
We are in the romantic subjects of that unity, that singularity
00:26:49
as humanism and education, which is that you will through that
00:26:55
experience have a relation with nature.
00:27:00
That if I were to criticize it, I find because of this constant
00:27:07
lookout of the archetype, sometimes I find too generic.
00:27:11
If you go to a big town, to Tokyo, or if you go to the
00:27:15
forest or mentioning the ocean where we were, you know, both of
00:27:19
us raised, where do you recognize yourself as well?
00:27:22
Where do you connect or you, where do you feel amazed or
00:27:25
where it identifies you as well as a person?
00:27:29
It distances you, it connects you.
00:27:31
I think he was talking about the what we see, what separates us
00:27:35
from what's the outside, what's the inside and what's the
00:27:39
recognition, which I think it's always important.
00:27:42
Yes, yeah, I. Think.
00:27:43
In the phenomenological kind of. Phenomenological way exactly, I
00:27:46
agree more visceral even if you are put in in in, you know, in
00:27:50
North Pole, where which I had never been unfortunately, but
00:27:54
what would what? Listen, we can take care of
00:27:56
that. We can send you to the North
00:27:58
Pole. There's a fusion and there's an
00:28:00
identification of yourself. There's all there's still that
00:28:04
that layer, the skin, the eye. There's a layer where you be
00:28:10
begin and where you are others as well alterity and you become
00:28:15
also the tree if you if you want, but it's you're not the
00:28:20
tree. So this is going to be an
00:28:26
incredibly a wealth of resources for other works.
00:28:31
So what he's going to do with these imprints is that he's
00:28:34
going to magnify them and then project them, project them onto
00:28:38
a wall and do wall drawings. He's going to do something
00:28:43
similar with leaves and he's going to superimpose them and
00:28:47
sometimes retrace the veins of the of the leaves and produce a
00:28:52
number of drawings from those super impositions between the
00:28:56
vegetable skin and the human dermis.
00:29:00
And the principle is the fact that all these things are in
00:29:03
motion, their fluids. And I think air in that sense is
00:29:07
very important to him because there's this exchange of trees
00:29:13
absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, us absorbing
00:29:18
the oxygen and producing carbon dioxide.
00:29:21
And this notion of this constant flow and cycle is one of the
00:29:28
most important things. And his experience in the river,
00:29:31
just to finish with the river, there's a quote of his in 89
00:29:35
saying, according to Socrates, in our soul is a block of wax,
00:29:41
which is a memory, a gift of the muses.
00:29:44
So there's other materials he's going to work with, with
00:29:46
plaster, wax, gloss, crystal, but with this idea of the
00:29:52
malleability of the material and this connection to memory.
00:29:57
So this connection of remembrance.
00:29:59
And it, what's interesting with Socrates is this idea that you
00:30:04
don't learn anything you remember.
00:30:07
It's impossible to teach humans. So the meiotic, which is
00:30:12
literally means to give birth. And Socrates's mom was a
00:30:16
midwife. Socrates's theory was that the
00:30:20
role of the philosopher was to help others remember, so give
00:30:27
birth to their own remembrance or their own ideas that they
00:30:31
already had within them. Your body containing knowledge
00:30:36
already. All knowledge is already
00:30:38
contained within your body. And I think it's not a
00:30:42
coincidence. Yeah, but an important element
00:30:45
of that sentence is that he says a gift of the Muses.
00:30:51
And I think he's talking about not your real time memory, but
00:30:57
philosophical knowledge. Again, we're in the archetype.
00:31:01
So the muses, of course he would be trees would be the river
00:31:07
would be organic. Organic.
00:31:11
No, the the organic. I like the plane.
00:31:14
No, no. I can only do this with you
00:31:18
because it's amazing, no? No, but I agree.
00:31:20
I totally agree. Yes, I understand.
00:31:22
Do you know what I mean? Elsewhere, Yeah.
00:31:24
Yeah, yeah, I think it's the that's what he means.
00:31:27
And if I may be a bit pedantic, I would also say that Sigmund
00:31:33
Freud also uses wax as a metaphor for memory, but for the
00:31:39
subconscious. But he uses wax in that game.
00:31:44
Remember there was a toy that we had when we were kids.
00:31:47
You would draw with the stylus, then you would scrape it, yes,
00:31:52
by dragging something that was part of that, the toy part of
00:31:56
the rectangular structure, And then you would delete the
00:31:59
drawing. That that that brings us back to
00:32:02
your past episodes of Gerard Drieshta.
00:32:08
I'm not getting the joke. With the dragging.
00:32:14
Yes, true. Wow, that was really phenomenal.
00:32:17
OK, you're, you're, you're cooking with gas where I'm
00:32:20
really trying to explain this toy.
00:32:22
That is not easy. And so going back to Freud, he
00:32:26
said that the wax was a subconscious because when you
00:32:30
even out the outer layer of wax, the drawing would still be in
00:32:35
the wax. And so your memory is a
00:32:39
suppressed memory or a repressed memory or an unconscious memory,
00:32:43
but it will be there. And your memory is kind of like
00:32:46
a recording device that will never erase but will layer.
00:32:52
And it's kind of like a layer upon layer upon layer upon layer
00:32:55
of this wax material that kind of is malleable and therefore
00:32:59
absorbs everything. And everything you will have
00:33:02
gone through is there in your subconscious in that waxy, waxy
00:33:07
material. Brings us back to the excavation
00:33:10
of the trees by Panone. I am drawing a paradox here,
00:33:14
which is or a contrast here, which is that when Panone speaks
00:33:19
of wax, he's talking about a sort of a knowledge memory, So
00:33:24
memosine given by the Muses, so a Greek reference to Socratic
00:33:30
notions of knowledge, meaning that knowledge is already within
00:33:33
you, you don't gain knowledge, you remember it, right?
00:33:36
And with Freud, it's new information and it's something
00:33:40
that happens to you. So with the nitty gritty, it's
00:33:45
the little events, it's the psychological effects and
00:33:50
percepts and affections that you have in you that make your
00:33:54
personal story. And Pannoni doesn't seem
00:33:57
concerned by that. He's in an archetypal relation
00:34:02
to memory. I see.
00:34:05
Yes, Panone seems like a very centered person.
00:34:11
Why'd you say that? He doesn't need psychoanalysis,
00:34:16
lads. So what I will propose is that
00:34:20
we go for a break and convene later when you will take us into
00:34:25
the exhibition. See you in a bit.
00:34:27
See you soon. If you're here, you're probably
00:34:36
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00:35:19
Now something a bit different. I'd also love to start a
00:35:22
conversation with you. You can now leave comments on
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Spotify, which is a great way to know what you want more of, or
00:35:29
if you'd like to add something to the topic developed, the
00:35:31
artist discussed, or simply if you want to leave a note of
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good stuff. Why not bring positivity ideas
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and especially your own perspective to the Digital Art
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Village? OK, so we're back and we're
00:36:01
going to go into the exhibition, but this time we are not going
00:36:06
to push the doors of the Serpentine right away.
00:36:10
The exhibition starts in the park so the title of the
00:36:14
exhibition is Thoughts in the Roots.
00:36:16
It is on until the 7th of September so there's lots of
00:36:21
time to visit if you're in London and the exhibition was Co
00:36:25
curated by Claude Agile, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Alexa Chow was
00:36:32
the assistant's curator. What attracts you from afar is
00:36:37
this huge tree. The inside is gold and then
00:36:42
there is a little hill to go to it.
00:36:45
So it's quite dramatic. And then from a distance further
00:36:49
away, you can perceive that there are more works from Panone
00:36:54
and and then you approach these three, you see the title
00:36:57
Thunderstruck 3. It's a, it's a work from 2012.
00:37:02
And for once I touched it, I had to for some reason.
00:37:08
It was outside. There were no barriers.
00:37:11
It's it was quite inviting and the material was quite rough.
00:37:16
There was this tactility to the material because it was so
00:37:20
rough, but at the same time so similar to.
00:37:23
Wait, wait, wait. The tree.
00:37:24
I'm sorry, but I I'm discombobulated.
00:37:29
You think they're trees. You don't.
00:37:32
You touch them because you think they're trees, right?
00:37:35
Was it not your? I mean, that was my experience.
00:37:38
I knew it wasn't. It couldn't be a tree.
00:37:42
How did you know? I don't know it was the.
00:37:45
Maybe by knowing it from before or approaching it, my instincts
00:37:52
were telling me that it's it's not a tree and I think it was
00:37:59
the golden leaf on top of it that it felt to me strange to be
00:38:06
on a tree outside. Something happened also because
00:38:12
we going through the park with my son, we were talking about
00:38:17
Albert. Excuse me?
00:38:18
More our son. Well, Jesus, why am I
00:38:22
dispossessed of my children suddenly?
00:38:24
I didn't want to bring your child to the podcast.
00:38:28
Yeah, exactly. It's.
00:38:29
Just your child without asking you but mine I can, you know I.
00:38:32
Can, yeah, you can reference, yeah.
00:38:35
So we were talking, we were talking about Alberts Memorial
00:38:38
and then our son asked if it was real gold Alberts sculpture.
00:38:43
It's also bronze, gilded bronze and then covered with gold leaf.
00:38:49
I was taken aback by the fact that it's not a real tree and
00:38:53
it's bronze and I was a bit weirded out by that.
00:38:57
And then so there's a second sculpture, which is a bronze
00:39:00
tree that looks intact. So it's just the the the wood,
00:39:05
Let's say if the tree, it's a leafless tree and on the
00:39:09
branches it has it doesn't you have big, big stones placed on
00:39:15
the branches. But by the way, the work is
00:39:18
called Ideas of Stone. Oh, it's called Ideas of Stone.
00:39:22
And then around that tree installation, there's stones in
00:39:27
a circle around that. I found the arrangements of
00:39:31
stones strange. I I wasn't in it.
00:39:35
I had a different experience also because it was quite
00:39:40
dramatic somehow. 2 trees also very strange.
00:39:44
Both of them, right, with a golden leaf on one of them hit
00:39:48
by a lightning. And then you look at the other
00:39:51
sculpture from afar. There's a family or adults and
00:39:55
children just playing around and jumping from stone to stone.
00:39:59
That's part of the installation, so it was accessible.
00:40:03
But you find huge, heavy stones on top of those theme branches.
00:40:09
But for that to happen, I sense the floods I've sensed for those
00:40:14
rocks to be there, A flood bigger than those 10m high
00:40:18
trees. Would have had to happen for
00:40:21
these rocks to be in there because and also I think for
00:40:25
him, stones are polished by the flow of the river.
00:40:30
So there was the presence of the river.
00:40:33
But for me it was more than a river.
00:40:35
It was a strong river. Floods that flooded the the the
00:40:39
the the the entire tree and brought this rocks to the top.
00:40:44
And then he went away. And then you see these children
00:40:46
playing after the storm, curious now to see what you felt about
00:40:52
the inside. When you get in, immediately you
00:40:55
see our key QC with eyes closed from work from 2009.
00:41:03
And suddenly I had to turn my my back to it to to see what was in
00:41:07
this in this wall. So the two walls as you enter,
00:41:11
so the two walls, so to the left and to the right, they have
00:41:15
words stamped on them. The stamp is not a negative,
00:41:18
it's a positive. And when you stamp, it stamps
00:41:21
the negative version. This is the positive.
00:41:23
Yes, there's two. You realize that there's two
00:41:26
works, but only at the end. 8046 journey in El Cielo 88 days
00:41:33
in the sky and then you have another one.
00:41:37
Called on the other wall. On the other wall 28 1490
00:41:43
written in digits and Journey Nelsiello and the title in
00:41:48
English is 28 days in the sky and this one was from 2025 S
00:41:58
1 from 1969 and the other one from 2008.
00:42:03
But then then I've realized that those days, the 8046 days are
00:42:10
were the days that Penoni was under the the sky alive.
00:42:16
So he was 20, he was 22 years old.
00:42:20
So he wrote all the days that he was.
00:42:22
And then he created in 2025, another work.
00:42:27
These stamps stopped me and I had to look back and suddenly
00:42:32
you were in immediately into kind of a time time zone or two
00:42:37
time zones and you are three time zones because you were
00:42:40
suddenly on your time zone as well.
00:42:43
And those doors felt almost like an idea.
00:42:46
There was kind of an A portal. And it's interesting because you
00:42:49
get into the exhibition, but then you look back.
00:42:51
So then after this experience, I moved to with eyes closed.
00:42:55
You could see even better from afar that it's been on his eyes,
00:42:58
represented with what you think it's paint or drawing little
00:43:03
dots. So but then you approach and you
00:43:06
see that those little dots or what's marking the drawing,
00:43:10
what's making the drawing, are very spiky Acacia thorns.
00:43:15
And then in the center you have polished white Carrara marble,
00:43:20
also sculpted. I think it was replicating or
00:43:23
going through think the skin or. Skin of the tree or your own
00:43:27
skin? I think it's kind of.
00:43:29
Even the kind of the skin, or the veins, or the marble,
00:43:32
marble, marble veins. I think when you read the title,
00:43:36
you kind of go, oh, wait a minute, these were eyes.
00:43:40
You're not quite sure. So he's not kind of like
00:43:43
bringing it on with a force. It's like the same thing with
00:43:46
the number of the days under the sky.
00:43:48
It's not narcissistic. Almost inviting you to close
00:43:53
your eyes. It's not about what you see.
00:43:56
And then you move to to the right.
00:43:58
You have this work called Persone Y Ani, so people and
00:44:03
ears from 2020 and then it's interesting that it's from 2020
00:44:10
as well also. When Chelan Chelan died.
00:44:14
Oh yes, absolutely. And the pandemic began.
00:44:18
It's a footage piece, so it's a 14 meter, 15 meter long piece
00:44:25
work and it's a footage, so it's all about.
00:44:28
Rubbing. Touching.
00:44:29
Rubbing. 2020 was, if anything, nothing about touching.
00:44:34
Oh yeah, true. It's it goes around the, IT
00:44:37
envelops the corner it. Envelops the corner.
00:44:39
And then continues on to another wall.
00:44:42
Makes a turn. And it's kind of almost like a
00:44:45
shroud. There's a shroud aspect to it,
00:44:48
like a Mortuary linen in some ways, because it's kind of
00:44:52
wrapping the wall. You don't feel like it's hanging
00:44:55
on the wall for you to look at. It's embracing what's covering
00:44:58
the wall. There's something very strange.
00:45:01
And there's also another aspect of it, which is that it has.
00:45:06
So it's the first incidence of a scent.
00:45:10
There's an odor, there's an odor to the piece.
00:45:12
It's very, very intense. It's still, I wouldn't say very,
00:45:16
very intense to keep the very, very intense for later.
00:45:19
So I. Would say OK, intense.
00:45:22
Or very intense. Yes, so the linen has at the
00:45:27
centre these green lines that are the rubbing of vegetable
00:45:33
colour and leaf cottage. Yes.
00:45:36
On a tree trunk, absolutely. So the length of the linen is
00:45:40
the length of the tree, and the tree's at the center, but it's
00:45:44
horizontal, so it's horizontal. It goes across.
00:45:47
So it's a lifeline, almost like a timeline, almost.
00:45:51
But you go from left to right. So it's not a readable timeline,
00:45:54
It's reversed. Yeah, you see that?
00:45:56
You see the piece from the right to left.
00:45:59
From right to left and you read from left to right.
00:46:02
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Yes, it's a timeline and I'm
00:46:06
talking about text and timeline because it has text.
00:46:09
So absolutely around the rubbing.
00:46:12
Of the tree rings like the tree rings there is.
00:46:15
Exactly, there's text. A line, a line, and then another
00:46:18
line. So he says, line by line, the
00:46:22
volume of words wraps around the tree, adding to the description
00:46:27
of its form, thoughts and evocations of images,
00:46:31
associating the meaning of words with the memories that each
00:46:35
reader identifies for them to the word silence, never present
00:46:40
in nature, memory amplifies the sounds of the body, the the
00:46:46
breath that inhales oxygen, the heart that pulses and
00:46:51
distributes blood throughout the body.
00:46:55
So this is more about his experience in nature, being next
00:46:59
to a tree, almost imagining the idea of a spectator or being a
00:47:03
spectator. But he also describes, I think,
00:47:07
something more theoretical about his conception of art.
00:47:11
And maybe if you I'm sending it to you, you can read it.
00:47:16
Maybe you could read this part. OK, it is one of the functions
00:47:23
of art to help us understand and amend the changes that the
00:47:28
social body has imposed on the surrounding reality.
00:47:32
Bringing thoughts back to the needs of the individual, to
00:47:36
their existence. To the sense of wonder they feel
00:47:40
when confronted with a timeless and immutable astonishment that
00:47:45
nature inspires. To the marvel of thought and its
00:47:48
capacity to continuously evoke new images, emotions,
00:47:53
discoveries, intentions, revealing and making present
00:47:57
unexpected realities hidden between the infinitesimal
00:48:02
dimension of the atom and the inconceivable vastness of space.
00:48:07
Without forgetting the enduring emotions that a drop of water, a
00:48:12
river, a grain of sand, a mountain, a spark, the sun or
00:48:17
the moon caught between the branches of a tree can evoke the
00:48:22
capacity for emotion that the line of a drawing can arouse
00:48:26
through the mysterious mechanism that provokes in US.
00:48:30
Astonishment evoking memory is part of the inexhaustible wonder
00:48:35
that make the inexhaustible wonder that makes a material as
00:48:40
precious as coal or dust placed on the sheets reproduce the
00:48:45
light and shadows and reveal the thoughts and gaze of another who
00:48:49
has been able to annotate by describing with spots, with
00:48:53
Marks, and by fixing emotions that remain in time and are
00:48:58
revived every time 1's gaze enters the author's thoughts,
00:49:02
making him present. So.
00:49:06
This is quite the text that has no ends.
00:49:09
You enter a sentence and you just feel like you're in the
00:49:12
river, taken by the the current and you cannot stop.
00:49:18
And you're just taken to such differences of light and emotion
00:49:23
and ideas and you cannot stop and you cannot hold on to them.
00:49:27
But somehow they're making sense to you.
00:49:29
And it's about you and that flux of things.
00:49:33
And then you stop and you, you don't exactly know what happened
00:49:37
to you. Yeah.
00:49:38
Exactly like the rings of the tree.
00:49:40
That doesn't stop. It keeps on going and going and
00:49:43
going and going. Yeah, maybe It's quite intense.
00:49:46
Only us humans have the that sense of OK, let's stop, let's
00:49:50
have a seat, let's grab a coffee, let's.
00:49:53
But it doesn't stop. Yeah, maybe.
00:49:54
Yeah, that is true, Yeah. Yeah, then think of that moving
00:49:58
on. When you we, you discover this
00:50:01
work. It's so long that you bump into
00:50:03
another work. Also indistinct Confini Renus.
00:50:08
So indistinct boundaries Renus. So it's from 2012.
00:50:12
I've gathered that Renus was something connected to the to
00:50:16
the river. So who lived by the river?
00:50:19
The one who lived by the river or also it's it's all Germanic
00:50:23
and also a Celtic would be the flow connected to the idea of
00:50:27
flow as well? It's a sort of a pillar.
00:50:30
It's a sort of a pillar tree sculpted in marble.
00:50:33
And then it's covered in blue. There's a side of it that has
00:50:37
the blue pigment or paint or whatever.
00:50:40
It looks quite almost Pagan, like a Pagan ritual.
00:50:44
And then you look to your left because you there's this smell
00:50:49
starting to be so strong that you have to kind of address it.
00:50:53
And then you walk to to the next room and there is this nature
00:50:57
smell. There is a smell of the idea of
00:51:00
we have of green, nature green. Yes, yes, of grass.
00:51:05
And grass of Moss. You know where the smell comes.
00:51:08
From I didn't, I kind of did. I didn't because at your right
00:51:12
hand you have just tea, vegetali.
00:51:14
So when you have on the wall to the left a very, very big sort
00:51:18
of fabric, so linen with a green, so monochromatic drawing
00:51:24
of branches and trees and like grass imprints.
00:51:27
And then in front of you on the on the wall, on the back, you
00:51:31
have again something that is a bit more figural.
00:51:35
So you have 3 trunks. It looks like a forest, but
00:51:37
again with the same green hues. Yes.
00:51:40
And then in the center. Darker I would.
00:51:43
Say much darker, it has a bit of brown.
00:51:46
And then in the center you have the fabulastic insulation with
00:51:52
these big clay pots, huge with a tree that seems to be planted on
00:52:00
several of them. Some of them don't have
00:52:02
anything, they just have soil. And then there's this bronze
00:52:05
sculpture that seems to be just Bach.
00:52:08
So Bach is kind of coming together to form a human figure.
00:52:15
And it's, it's actually strange work.
00:52:17
Also, I've, I, it's the idea of sculpture that I imagine on the
00:52:23
on, on the roundabouts, on the roundabouts.
00:52:26
And there is also this idea of dystopian, futuristic,
00:52:29
dystopian. It made me think of Miyazaki,
00:52:33
all the animation that we've watched recently.
00:52:36
Absolutely. With these beings coming to life
00:52:39
that are weirdly anthropomorphic but made of nature or natural
00:52:44
elements. Yes, exactly right.
00:52:48
Yes, absolutely. I've heard that this, this is
00:52:51
growing. It's still growing.
00:52:52
It's going to grow till the end of the exhibition.
00:52:54
I think the problem is that it doesn't fit into Penones
00:52:59
aesthetic, but he's been doing these sculptures since the 80s
00:53:03
so. Yes.
00:53:04
It's not a recent. Indoors, outdoor sculptures,
00:53:07
absolutely. Installations, absolutely.
00:53:11
At the same time installation they feel different.
00:53:14
OK. So the Serpentine is built in a
00:53:17
way where there's a central area that is big and it's usually
00:53:21
kind of the the, the hitting point of the exhibition, let's
00:53:25
say. What did you feel?
00:53:28
So the smell continues but changes, right?
00:53:31
Yes, the. Walls are still very odorous,
00:53:33
yeah. Right.
00:53:34
The walls are covered with Laurel leaves.
00:53:38
Yes, Laurel leaves. Laurel leaves.
00:53:40
It's a very strange building that has, I think one or two
00:53:44
windows almost below the ceiling and the leaves go up to mid
00:53:51
window, which makes you, it's the first time I was in that
00:53:55
room and was made to look upward and it looks like a church.
00:53:59
It literally looks like and it has this central window.
00:54:06
And you're also kind of grabbed by that scent of the Laurel.
00:54:10
Leaves, absolutely. There are in boxes.
00:54:13
I mean not in. Boxes, but in the leaves are yes
00:54:15
in a. Net, sort of a gridded net.
00:54:18
Yeah, it's sort of net in little elements.
00:54:21
So in Unity, so in in boxes that then have this grid that holds
00:54:26
them. So they're not.
00:54:28
So the walls are not paved with leaves.
00:54:30
They are. You hang these boxes on the wall
00:54:34
that creates as if it was a mosaic that covered, but it's
00:54:38
not a mosaic. It's just the structure and the
00:54:41
pattern that is mosaic like. Absolutely.
00:54:45
Yes, and contains leaves. This work is called Respiratory
00:54:49
Lombra, to breathe the shadow. But it has another element.
00:54:55
So then there is this element also on the center wall on
00:55:00
opposite to another work that we will talk about.
00:55:03
But yes, when you turn left, you see this terracotta, this clay
00:55:09
sculpture mold a molded face with a mouth open where as if we
00:55:14
were inside a body. So the bronze that goes through
00:55:19
the mouth looks like a branch and then when it goes inside, it
00:55:24
divides into two branches with leaves.
00:55:27
And I think that that I believe and it is what it is.
00:55:31
I think it represents the lungs, right?
00:55:34
Breathing, yes, because also it goes to the mouth and divides
00:55:37
into two when it's inside the face.
00:55:40
We don't see the nose unless we get really close.
00:55:43
Because the face is turning towards the wall.
00:55:46
Towards the wall. So you see an empty skull, like
00:55:50
a mask? Yes.
00:55:52
And then the branch that goes through the mouth, but you see
00:55:55
it from behind, so you don't see the face.
00:55:56
So you're making me think that actually, it's as if when you're
00:56:01
in the space you were in the internal parts of your body.
00:56:06
It's like it's the body and the leaves are the air because it's
00:56:11
the scent. So you you sense the scent
00:56:13
through the nose. So if it's carried by the air,
00:56:17
then you have that face and you have the lungs and it's as if
00:56:20
you were inside your body. And then in the back you have
00:56:25
the other work, which is also the inside of the tree.
00:56:28
So there's something about being in an internal side of an
00:56:31
Organism that is receiving air. It's receiving scent.
00:56:36
It's exchanging the carbon dioxides.
00:56:39
Absolutely. For oxygen or vice versa.
00:56:43
And so there's this. It's a very strong.
00:56:48
Room. It has been shown several times
00:56:51
in different occasions. Sometimes it has more than one
00:56:54
sculpture. Facing that sculpture, this is a
00:56:56
whole installation, and then there's the wall on the other
00:56:59
side that has another sculpture. Yes, it's the book Book Trees
00:57:07
and it's from 2017. It's those sculptures that we
00:57:12
know from Pannoni where he gets the knots and goes inside and
00:57:16
discovers that the the younger tree and it's very long.
00:57:20
So it's one tree next to the other.
00:57:22
So it's probably 3 to 4 meters high.
00:57:25
Trees are carved like open books.
00:57:29
There is an angle. Yes.
00:57:32
On the side right like you had an open book in your.
00:57:35
Hand, that's true, I have noticed.
00:57:37
That yes, I really felt that. And you could see also it's it
00:57:42
was nice because you could, it could reveal the knot.
00:57:44
You could see the knots on the side and where the way he went
00:57:48
in to get the branches and to the younger tree inside and next
00:57:53
to each other. It's 12.
00:57:54
So it's quite big installation. You could see also that it's not
00:58:00
like cutting the tree with a robotic machine.
00:58:03
Or it's really. An industrial.
00:58:06
An industrial mechanical computer and you could you could
00:58:10
actually see that it's sometimes.
00:58:11
The carving. The carving is it has its own,
00:58:15
it thickens or it thinners, thins the, the branches, but
00:58:19
it's almost like a drawing again, it's, it shows a
00:58:21
direction. It shows the direction of the
00:58:23
growth also. And I this idea of open book as
00:58:27
well, because these trees and the branches, the way they, they
00:58:30
go to the left, to the right, up and down.
00:58:32
It's to balance the tree as well.
00:58:35
It's to respond to the elements, to the the storms around it,
00:58:40
balance winds and gravity. Probably diseases.
00:58:43
They're standing on, I mean, they're held by a big beam that
00:58:49
is untreated. I mean, that is not sculpted.
00:58:52
So that potentially could contain one of them trees.
00:58:56
And there's three types. Three.
00:58:59
I like that he kept that beam that looks quite rough.
00:59:04
It's not a beautiful thing to look at.
00:59:06
And I like that because you say, oh, it's carved manually, but
00:59:12
the beams are cut industrially. He's not like saving the tree
00:59:17
because he kept the other beam underneath.
00:59:20
And he's accepting the industrial condition as well.
00:59:25
He's not like, let's go back to the trees or he takes planes.
00:59:30
He has an iPhone. So he's a modern person.
00:59:33
He's not retired from, you know, civilization as it were.
00:59:37
I mean, industrialization and technology.
00:59:41
He's talking about the book. So again, there's always this
00:59:43
notion of knowledge and idea and philosophy, but there's also
00:59:48
this thing of acceptance I find. And also I, I felt the survival
00:59:54
of time and this protection and those trees leave many, many
00:59:59
years and they were outside many, many years.
01:00:02
And with books it's the same. There is this idea of.
01:00:06
Survival of time. So then you from this huge like
01:00:11
installation, you go to another room where light comes, natural
01:00:15
light comes again. You can see the park and the
01:00:18
reflection on the floor from the outside.
01:00:21
And you discover this work again, the pot and the tree.
01:00:25
But there is a a portrait of Penone printed on porcelain.
01:00:30
It's ceramic, yeah. Ceramic on ceramic and then
01:00:34
again the eyes are pierced by branches.
01:00:38
I quite like this work. I don't know what he felt about
01:00:42
it or if it was something that you retain this strong work.
01:00:47
I loved it. OK.
01:00:49
I loved it. I really love that work.
01:00:51
I think it's one of my favourites because the ceramic
01:00:55
is so unexpected. You think it's a photograph and
01:00:59
I thought what a great idea to have a photograph such a simple
01:01:04
and also kind of making me think to, you know, of his beginnings.
01:01:08
Obviously it's a reference to the eyes reversed piece with the
01:01:12
the mirror lenses. But then you see it's ceramic
01:01:16
and you think because he has a few sculptures that are vases
01:01:20
that I didn't talk about, he has thought about the container, the
01:01:23
idea of the container and but it's very subtle.
01:01:27
It's a very simple kind of work and suddenly you have a face.
01:01:31
I think it's a work that is the most mysterious one.
01:01:36
It's the most timeless to me. A few of these works feel a bit
01:01:39
dated to me, whereas this one, I think it could have been made in
01:01:44
the 50s, it could be made in the future.
01:01:47
I think it's a very audacious work.
01:01:51
I think I like it also because it's the only one where I is the
01:01:55
only work where I where I see a bit of darkness and the bits of
01:02:00
tragedy or something other than just an archetypal relation with
01:02:07
the material that is not specific.
01:02:09
Because in the room that I so loved, I was also thinking, does
01:02:13
he use the Laurel trees, the Laurel leaves because of their
01:02:17
healing properties, their anti-inflammatory?
01:02:21
Is it something that he's interested in?
01:02:24
I was kind of trying to see if he was going to be more specific
01:02:28
because Laurel leaves are also the leaves that the you used to
01:02:32
crown the poets, right? Nowadays, you would think I, I'm
01:02:38
looking into something that I have this wealth of knowledge
01:02:42
that his Mama is no one. I probably had, you know, the,
01:02:45
about these, these specimens. And again, I feel that some of
01:02:52
his work doesn't resonate with my needs.
01:02:55
Now when you're talking about the biosphere at the moment, I
01:03:00
feel I need something different. I need something more and that's
01:03:05
maybe how I would perhaps end the discussion about the
01:03:12
exhibition is I loved going. I would probably go again.
01:03:17
I will most likely, but because I need to be in touch with that
01:03:23
sensitivity and that full engagement that he has.
01:03:28
But there's limitations to even comparing with Mary Miss or
01:03:34
Patricia Johnson. I mean, other artists who were
01:03:36
working, who were ecological artists and who were working
01:03:40
with the awareness of the impact we have as humans.
01:03:44
And I feel like he creates a sort of a bubble.
01:03:47
Well, you can forget about the impact that humans have on our
01:03:53
own future. And I think that's where you can
01:03:56
reconnect with him. He's saying like, these guys are
01:03:59
going to stay. You know, these trees, these,
01:04:02
you may destroy a few specimens, but they're going to stay after
01:04:05
you're gone. So that's why I'm, I, I love the
01:04:08
exhibition. I love his work.
01:04:10
It's just that at a certain time when I see gridded sleeves, I'm
01:04:14
like, there's a part of me was like, symbolically they're a bit
01:04:19
trapped. And I'm not sure that's what
01:04:21
he's trying to do. He's just trying to create a way
01:04:23
of making a wall of leaves. But then you get to that piece
01:04:29
and you get a form of darkness. Something about this body is
01:04:35
going to be eaten up a freshness.
01:04:39
A freshness as well, but a darkness.
01:04:41
Understand. Yes.
01:04:42
Yeah, yeah. But then in the same room you
01:04:44
have pression pressione. Pressure.
01:04:48
Pressure. Pressure.
01:04:49
Yes. And then the one.
01:04:50
What's the name? What's the title?
01:04:53
Sophie the Fogly. I don't know if I'm saying it
01:04:55
right. Breath of Leaves.
01:04:57
It's fantastic. It's fantastic.
01:04:59
Yeah, it's amazing. I knew you were going to, of
01:05:02
course. I love it, like it, and it's a
01:05:04
strong work. I thought in the beginning that
01:05:07
I would always imagine that he would jump and fall and those
01:05:11
leaves. So you see leaves on the floor
01:05:15
with a very, very organic shape or just left there on when you
01:05:20
are cleaning your garden. And then you put the leaves
01:05:22
together with the very irregular shape, OK.
01:05:25
And they're organized in a sort of a heap that is flattened by
01:05:32
something. There's a trace of something.
01:05:35
There's a trace of something, yes, definitely.
01:05:38
He lies on the heap of leaves and he's he blows.
01:05:45
He breathes in and out, I would say.
01:05:48
Or maybe, yeah, he breathes in, in.
01:05:50
And out with the leaves into the leaves.
01:05:53
Yes. Yes, I always, even knowing the
01:05:55
work, I always imagined since the beginning and even now that
01:05:58
he would jump to the work, he would fall. 77.
01:06:01
I don't know maybe exactly why not.
01:06:04
It could, yeah. It doesn't need to be him.
01:06:07
The concept is is great and it's it's it's there.
01:06:10
It could be an assistant, it could be an invitation for us to
01:06:14
do it as well. I would say that that piece
01:06:17
could now go a bit further as well and maybe be open to to a
01:06:22
more collaborative experience and repeat.
01:06:26
The gesture could be quite nice, but it's of course it's.
01:06:29
For me personally, that part, that part of the exhibition was
01:06:34
really nice with the final work, which is pressure.
01:06:38
It's part of the skin work, reversed with tape, but
01:06:42
magnified and put on the wall here by assistance.
01:06:46
Projected. Projected and then with the help
01:06:48
of assistance drawn with charcoal on the wall and I felt
01:06:51
that it was augmented image, but also augmented almost
01:06:56
microscopic touch. So when you draw, you are
01:06:58
actually making a mark, but also micro touching that small
01:07:05
contact point of contact with, yes, with his skin somehow.
01:07:10
So it's augmented visually, but it's also augmented in the idea
01:07:14
of the touch, the repeated, repeated touch and the making.
01:07:17
And this drawing, I don't know if you notice it's opposite,
01:07:20
opposite to the drawings, the rubbings of the trees.
01:07:23
So when I look at this small drawing augmented on the wall,
01:07:28
it felt like also a landscape. It felt like a forest because
01:07:32
you could see the airs, you could see the.
01:07:35
It goes. Also, it's quite a huge
01:07:37
installation and it's pretty much symmetrical positioning to
01:07:41
the. Other room.
01:07:43
And I felt even leaving the exhibition, I felt that it was a
01:07:47
body that they were kind of drawing with every time on the
01:07:51
sides. He had the branches going out,
01:07:53
he had the trees, he had the leaves.
01:07:55
But then inside you had the inside of the body, like you
01:07:58
were saying, center. There was a face, if you imagine
01:08:02
where that face was opposite to it on the first, there was the
01:08:06
first work that we saw with the eyes closed.
01:08:09
So you could imagine you could imagine that in front of that
01:08:14
face. There were there was that piece
01:08:16
with centered as well. So exactly centered with the
01:08:19
that sculpture with the eyes closed and I and then going out
01:08:24
again, there was the the time, the time that it's relative,
01:08:29
right? It was the time that you were
01:08:30
there that some some artists can do that to you as well to make
01:08:35
it bigger and make it smaller. You don't know, you lose track
01:08:38
of time. It could have been a long time
01:08:39
that you stayed in the show, maybe not that long.
01:08:42
So and go going back to your day, to your time.
01:08:47
And the muses that in that quote of Socrates, the work that we
01:08:52
didn't like that much. At the same time, it kind of
01:08:55
makes sense when you think about his references.
01:08:58
And it's also very beautiful that it makes us think of a lot
01:09:02
of animation. I mean, from Yazaki to more
01:09:05
obscure. I mean, obscure for us,
01:09:06
obviously not for our kids, but we've watched recently on
01:09:09
Netflix like Scavengers Reign. So in some ways, and I always
01:09:14
say this in the podcast, what you like, what you don't like,
01:09:17
it's there's a, we are limited by our own education and our own
01:09:22
tastes. And it's also great to feel when
01:09:27
we converse with someone that you can kind of overcome that
01:09:31
limitation and understand that maybe the resonance of a work
01:09:37
with meaningful experiences might be more important than
01:09:41
you're being a bit shocked by the kitschy aspect of, of a
01:09:47
work. And you helped a lot in the way
01:09:48
you were talking about the exhibition as a body and kind of
01:09:53
seeing the correspondences of all the works together.
01:09:57
That was quite great. But yeah, thank you.
01:09:59
I think we've come to the to the end of the road.
01:10:03
I think there was the problems that there was.
01:10:05
There's still so much that I wanted to say.
01:10:08
Absolutely same same and developing ideas as well.
01:10:11
I felt that I had to jump to another one quite quickly.
01:10:14
But thank you also for inviting me and for your podcast.
01:10:19
It's making me going to more exhibitions lately.
01:10:22
Thank you for that as well. So this episode was recorded on
01:10:26
the 27th of April 2025. Our research assistant was Sehej
01:10:32
Malik and the music is by Satan. Thank you so much for sticking
01:10:38
with us. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
01:10:40
Have a good one, until the next time.
01:10:48
Exhibitionist is an indie podcast with its perks and its
01:10:52
productive challenges, but I'm very thankful to be in your
01:10:55
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01:10:58
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