“About the sculpture, about the sculptor”: the role of skin in Giuseppe Penone’s works

Abstract

The article offers a reading of some significant works by Giuseppe Penone starting from a key theme of his scultural practice: the skin. These works are connected with Didier Anzieu’s essay, The Skin-Ego in which is specified the fundamental role of the skin in the human being, in particular in the formation of an ego – filter and interface between the subject and his milieu – and in which he suggests the idea of a “creative skin” recently resumed by Stéphane Dumas as a paradigm of artistic creation.