Seeing Through Closed Eyelids: Giuseppe Penone and the Nature of Sculpture

Can a work of art help us know our world differently? In this first scholarly study of Giuseppe Penone, art historian Elizabeth Mangini argues that the Italian artist’s engagement of the body’s multiple senses constitutes a new theory of sculpture as a means to connect with and know the phenomenal world. Through close readings of signal works across Penone’s five—decade career – from his emergence in the context of 1960s Arte povera to his position as a pre—eminent contemporary artist today...