Artist Giuseppe Penone Creates 40 ft Bronze Trees for Madison Square Park

The Madison Square Park Conservancy has announced the newest edition of the Mad. Sq. Art exhibition. The renowned artist Giuseppe Penone has created a sculptural installation for Fall 2013, consisting of three monumental, 40-foot tall bronze trees.

Ideas of Stone will interact with Madison Square Park’s natural landscape, highlighting the relationship between man, art and nature. The three works are titled Triplice (Triple), Idee di pietra – 1303 Kg di luce (Ideas of stone – 1303 Kg of light), and Idee di pietra – Olmo (Ideas of stone – Elm).

Penone has previously had his work exhibited in the French formal gardens of the Château de Versailles in France. The Italian artist uses natural materials, with a focus on the living, breathing tree, to explore the contrasting and fundamental relationships between man and nature. Penone was a member of the Arte Povera group, artists who sought to dissolve divisions between art and life by using commonplace subjects and materials in their work.

“It is with great anticipation that I have planned for the exhibition of my work in Madison Square Park,” Penone said. “A tree summarizes in an exemplary way the contrast between two forces: the force of gravity and the weight of life we are part of. The need and the search for balance, which exists in every living being to counteract the force of gravity, is evident in every step and in every small action of our lives. It is a river stone that appears amid the branches of a tree. A stone suspended amid the branches of a tree, separated from the soil by a structure that is not land and is not air, a stone that lies between the force of gravity and the force of the attraction of light.”

Debbie Landau, the President of the Madison Square Park Conservancy, added, “With this, the Park’s twenty-sixth exhibition of outdoor sculpture, we are honored to present Giuseppe Penone, an esteemed artist of international stature. Penone’s work may be best-known to European audiences, and the opportunity to display his towering bronze trees in New York is a tribute to his unique vision which complements the natural environment of the Park’s foliage as the seasons transition from fall to winter.”

Ideas of Stone will run from September 26 to February 9.