GRENOBLE.- Giuseppe Penone has not had a big exhibition in a French museum since his retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2004. For his exhibition at Musée de Grenoble, he has designed a very open exhibition that combines old works and new creations, sculptures and murals, monumental pieces and intimate works. In the manner of Bachelard, it offers a reverie about the pieces, sensual and poetic daydreams which incidentally lead to a renewed approach to the relationship of man with nature and the deep links and independent bonds between them. Wood, marble, bronze and also plants, silk, leather, graphite will form a large number of sculptures as well as an in-situ installation. They are accompanied by a selection of drawings, many unpublished, which inform their genesis.

The exhibition has been sub-divided into five sections. The first discusses touch in order to capture what we feel and see around us. The second focuses on skin, discussing the border between outside and inside which contains and protects our vital fluids. The third focuses on breathing. The blowing of the wind through the leaves, the breath that animates the body to illustrate the links between man and nature. The fourth explores: mineral, vegetable and animal. The fifth is a celebration of the beauty nature.

Born in 1947 in Garessio in Italy, Giuseppe Penone was considered part of Arte Povera by Germano Celant in 1969. Since his first solo show in 1968 his work has been the subject of many exhibitions in various countries around the world (recently Toyota Municipal Museum of Art ¨¤ Toyota in Japon (2009) and the Modern Art Museum of Bologne in Italy (2008)). In France the last major retrospective of his work took place at Centre Pompidou in 2004. He represented Italy at the 52nd Venice Biennial and took part in the last edition of Documenta in Kassel. Two exhibitions were on view at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and at the Winterthur Kunstmuseum in 2013.

Giuseppe Penone lives and works in Turin.