Humans are delighted by the fine arts and Povera Art, as the language of a natural life with simplistic materials, shows people the importance of the ecosystem. This uncommon trend is a mixture between the beauty of nature and the frankness of human memories. Also, this artistic tendency comes as an amazing result of the time and the space. Povera art uses uncommon and ugly materials to produce wonderful masterpieces. It also tries to introduce new art concepts related to the flow of universe. “Povera art is a weird tendency that uses time, space, natural materials and human intervention in order to explain different spontaneous changes in nature through the beauty” (Arteaga, A. 2010). Now, I wonder if a human being can change environmental processes in order to create art. Can we discover what some events mean by looking only at an alteration of nature caused by a human being? Could we create art with non-traditional art supplies?
Povera is an Italian expression that means “poor art” because the artist uses simple and grisly materials in order to create his or her works. However, the povera artists of the masterpieces endow those gloomy resources with a beauteous spirit. Sculptors and artistic painters make people think about the beauty of the routine and anonymous aspects of daily life, most of which don´t ever any artistic qualities have. This tendency appeared approximately in 1967, in Italy (Hernando, J. 2000). One of the youngest artists who performed this kind of art was Giuseppe Penone (Hernando, J. 2000).
The Italian Giuseppe Penone was born in Garessio, in the province of Cuneo, in 1947 (Celant, G. 1969). Currently, he has a studio in Turin and teaches at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is inspired by nature as a component that generates many forms and because of this he sees the trees as a privileged element for achieving his goals. In his first exhibition at the age of 21, he presented works made out of lead, iron, wax, pitch, wood, plaster and burlap (Celant, G. 1969). Two of these involved the natural action of the elements: Scala d'acqua "Water Ladder", in which the artist pitches a curve with a jet of water, and Corda, pioggia, sole “Rope, Rain, and Sun”, a structure in movement with its form was altered by weathering (Celant, G. 1969). This innovative artist completely changed the common ideas of this type of art as an expression of beauty, during the 1960s.
His representative sculptures use as a reference the trees, living organisms, in appearance so closely resembling the human figure. Many of the procedures that he adopts in the creation of his works are based on the act of relating different entities and forces, also on traces or memories of the contacts between them. In December 1968, he performed a series of acts in the woods near his home, a region in the Maritime Alps (AITIM, Boletín de Infromación Técnica). In that work, titled Alpi Marittime, Penone intervened in the growth processes of a tree, whose form retained the memory of his gesture over time. One of his acts involved the flow of water in a stream, the vital sap which gives strength to the tree and on which the artist draws constantly in his work, a vehicle of growth and proliferation. First, he interlaced the stems of three saplings. Then, he used nails to leave the imprint of his hand on the trunk of a tree and then affixed twenty-two pieces of lead to it, the number of his years, joining them up with zinc and copper wire. After that, he enclosed the top of a tree in a net burdened by the weight of plants. Finally, he pressed his body to a tree and marked on the trunk the points of contact with barbed wire: The Tree Will Remember the Contact (AITIM, Boletín de Infromación Técnica. Pags 50-52. 2010). Therefore, GiuseppePenone wanted to register how he had spent time in the forest making changes during trees growth.
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| Quito City Museum Exhibition |
In Penone's work, we can also view the opposed concepts of identity and analogy. The assimilation is shown in the process by which the artist emphasizes similar behaviors that belong to different entities by fossilizing them in a specific form. As a result, the images created are capable of materializing the thoughts and imagination of those who observe them. They allow understanding of the flow from one material to another, from one subject to another, from an animal body to a vegetable or mineral body. For instance, Penone repeated the form of a stone worn by running water in a stone of the same kind found on a hillside closer to the river's source. He exhibited the two stones side by side. He replicated the work done by natural agents on the stone, bringing out the likeness between the action of the river and the action of the sculptor and identifying himself with the river (Penone, G. 2007).
Decortications, vegetable expressions, incisions, pressure and deformation alter nature enforcing a human order to the natural course. Penone’s work is based on a meticulous observation of nature, which proposes a reflection between humankind and cosmos, both of them have an infinite capacity to create. Povera art has contributed to the fine arts with different projections. Hence, art is within every simple aspect of life and only depens on everyone to assimilate to the charm around them. Well now, what is art to you?