The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone at Whitechapel Gallery

Giuseppe Penone is developing a new installation that stays true to the remarkable consistency of his on-going work. A tree unlike any other creates a space in which to have a rich conversation about nature and the city. The steel cast of a hand gripping the tender stem of a sapling only to be absorbed as the tree grows stronger; a tree's younger self revealed within an industrially cut beam by stripping back the wood to a single year ring; the sculpture of a stone made to resemble a rock found in the river: these are some of the gestures with which Penone has, over the past 45 years, examined modern society's relationship to nature. Born in 1947, Penone was the final member to be admitted to the legendary group of Arte Povera. Inspired by the radical politics of the late 1960s these Italian artists turned the conventions of traditional sculpture upside down as an invitation to people to take greater responsibility for the way they live.