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Lot Essay
'The solid, a condition of the inquiry into the void, is the sculptor
who with his tool and his hands exerts the pressure
that produces volumes.
Vase as: substitution of the hands of the potter;
negative of the hands of the potter; sum of imprints;
the matrix to recreate, with his grip, the skin of the potter' (Penone 1974), G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 204).
Giuseppe Penone's Cocci, created in 1982, present the viewer with an array of plaster elements connected to the fragments of antique pottery which lend the work its title, a juxtaposition that allows him to explore the realm of touch, experience and human interaction with the world in a poetic manner. Both the plaster moulded in Penone's hands and the clay modelled by some unknown potter centuries earlier initially took the form of liquids that were shaped and solidified, the fluid becoming stable, revealing the artist's continued interest in the interaction between humanity and nature: earthy materials have been taken and manipulated in processes that are parallel to each other, though separated by centuries. Through Penone's reincarnation of the pottery shards, the artist removes the practicality associated with the original objects, instead presenting them as the results - the tangible traces - of the lives and movements and experiences of the anonymous potters.
Penone's exploration of skin as the arena for contact with the world - the border with the outside through which he sense and experience the universe and upon which, in the form of scars and wrinkles, those same experiences are sometimes recorded - extends to the hand-crafted pots and to the imprints of his own hands in these Cocci. In a parallel to a printing or industrial moulding process, these plaster and clay elements are the 'positives' that have been created by the applied pressure of Penone's, or the potter's, hands. When Penone discussed vases as the 'substitution' and 'negative of the hands of the potter', he was presciently paving the way for a succession of works that involved imprints, thus investigating these concepts in various lyrical ways. His focus would be honed the year after he wrote those words, when he discovered a fingerprint in an antique vase which he displayed and explored in Vaso of 1975. This would remain a key interest in his work, as demonstrated in the Cocci, where the traces of his own hands are so poignantly visible.
who with his tool and his hands exerts the pressure
that produces volumes.
Vase as: substitution of the hands of the potter;
negative of the hands of the potter; sum of imprints;
the matrix to recreate, with his grip, the skin of the potter' (Penone 1974), G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 204).
Giuseppe Penone's Cocci, created in 1982, present the viewer with an array of plaster elements connected to the fragments of antique pottery which lend the work its title, a juxtaposition that allows him to explore the realm of touch, experience and human interaction with the world in a poetic manner. Both the plaster moulded in Penone's hands and the clay modelled by some unknown potter centuries earlier initially took the form of liquids that were shaped and solidified, the fluid becoming stable, revealing the artist's continued interest in the interaction between humanity and nature: earthy materials have been taken and manipulated in processes that are parallel to each other, though separated by centuries. Through Penone's reincarnation of the pottery shards, the artist removes the practicality associated with the original objects, instead presenting them as the results - the tangible traces - of the lives and movements and experiences of the anonymous potters.
Penone's exploration of skin as the arena for contact with the world - the border with the outside through which he sense and experience the universe and upon which, in the form of scars and wrinkles, those same experiences are sometimes recorded - extends to the hand-crafted pots and to the imprints of his own hands in these Cocci. In a parallel to a printing or industrial moulding process, these plaster and clay elements are the 'positives' that have been created by the applied pressure of Penone's, or the potter's, hands. When Penone discussed vases as the 'substitution' and 'negative of the hands of the potter', he was presciently paving the way for a succession of works that involved imprints, thus investigating these concepts in various lyrical ways. His focus would be honed the year after he wrote those words, when he discovered a fingerprint in an antique vase which he displayed and explored in Vaso of 1975. This would remain a key interest in his work, as demonstrated in the Cocci, where the traces of his own hands are so poignantly visible.