Branching From The Past, Rooted In The Future

The Eternal City receives its first public contemporary artwork since the 17th century. And the tree-like sculpture Foglie di Pietra by Giuseppe Penone is a symbol of Fendi’s commitment not just to preserving the past, but forging a heritage for Rome’s future.

- Grace Tay

People are stopping, milling in the street. They’re curious, excited, impatient. Swaths of barricades curve around the tip of the pie-shaped square that is Rome’s Largo Goldoni where something is clearly about to take place; another line of barriers line Via del Corso, keeping onlookers at a slight distance. Adjacent streets have been closed off. Strapping security guys in black suits keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

It’s late evening on an early summer day in May, and the sun is slowly setting on a very historical day in the making. Rome is receiving its first contemporary public artwork in over 400 years, since Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was installed in the Piazza Navona.

News of this new work’s creator, Italian artist Giuseppe Penone, has filled Italian newspapers in months past, following the opening of an exhibition Matrice in January. The free exhibition at Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (a fascist monument restored and transformed into Fendi’s headquarters in Rome) introduced the artist who was hitherto renowned internationally but less so in Italy, and was a way to prepare the ground. Metaphorically exploring nature – the tree and the forest – and its relationship with man, history and urbanity, 15 of Penone’s installations and sculptures from the 1970s to the present were selected for their resonance with the new public artwork.

The artist has public sculptures in Frankfurt, Kassel, Paris and New York. Tonight’s unveiling will be the culmination of months of speculation about Penone’s first public artwork in Rome. The sculpture is still shrouded by a surrounding wall of white sheets, translucent enough to give a hint of what’s within and height stopping short of concealing the top of its form.