Born in Garessio in 1974, Giuseppe Penone lives between Torino and Paris.

Since 1967 the realization process is part and parcel of his sculptures and installations. Artist's action in dialectic reference to Nature's action, gives shape to the matter, always different, revealing its fantastic side.

Between 1968 and 1969 the artist took his first exhibition in Torino at Deposito d'Arte Presente and at Sperone Gallery. At that time he establish himself as one of the main artists of Poor Art, the critical theory worked out by Germano Celant since 1969 and took part to international surveys about vanguard researches such as: "Konzeption-Conception" at Leverkusen Städtische Museum in 1969, "Conceptual Art Arte Povera Land Art" at Torino Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna and "Information" at New York Museum of Modern Art both in 1970.

The tree, considered by the artist "the first and most simple idea of vitality, culture and sculpture", is a central element in his work. In "Trees" a cycle artwork started in 1969, he extracts from a wooden plank the original tree by which it was generated, but the excavation is never complete and the trunk with its branches is partially incorporated into the geometrical structure revealing its natural origin.

In some of his artworks human and nature work are mixed just like in "Pumpkins"(1978) or "Vegetable gestures". Since the beginning of the 70's Penone starts thinking about the principle of identity, conceiving the idea of bound regarded as a border and admiring the action of touching.

In Unrolling our own skin (1970), Eyelids (1978), Propagations (1994), Graphite Skin (2004), just as in other cycle works, tracks and imprints enlarged by drawing evoke the separation of everything as well as the mutual relationship between all things, their inevitable belonging to the same universe. In Breaths (1978) breathing and poetical inspiration materialize in the clay or in the vegetable elements all around the artist's body, which leaves on them its own imprint.

The artist stated many times that "there's no distinction between man and other things" and this belief, especially in his most recent works, is revealed by the vital transmigration of images from one material to another, by the joining of usually separated entities. We can notice this peculiarity in Brain landscapes (2000), where there are images in which the brain imprints in the skull are transposed on images of big leaves, or in Anatomies (1993), where the artist digs the marble surface so that what stands out are the marble veins which are very similar to human being's veins.

Since the beginning of the 70's penone's work gained important aknowledgements in Italy, Europe, United States and Japan. Many individual exhibitions were held in public museums such as Lucerne Kustmuseum a (1977), Baden-Baden Staatliche Kunsthalle, Museum Folkwang in Essen (1978), Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam (1980), Städtische Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach (1982), National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (1983), Forth Worth Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago (1984), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1984), Musée des Beaux-Arts of Nantes (1986), Villa delle Rose, Bologna (1990), Musée d'Art Moderne di Strasburgo, Rivoli Castle (1991), Kunstmuseum, Bonn (1997), Musée d'Art Contemporain , Nîmes, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (1997), Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea in Trento (1998), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea in Santiago de Compostela (1999), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2004), Museum Kurhaus, Kleve (2006), Académie de France, Villa Medici in Rome (2008), MAMbo Museo d'Arte Moderna, Bologna (2008).