In a warehouse complex in Turin, Italy, artist Giuseppe Penone has assembled a striking collection of life-size bronze tree sculptures in preparation for a new exhibition at the Gagosian gallery in New York. The show, titled "The Reflection of Bronze," will showcase Penone’s extensive exploration of natural forms and time through sculptural works that reinterpret trees as both living entities and enduring monuments.

Penone, a leading figure of the 1960s Italian Arte Povera movement, has long used organic materials to challenge conventional artistic methods. Now aged 79, he continues to work vigorously alongside his team, crafting monumental pieces that highlight his ongoing dialogue with nature. His artistic approach originated in the forests of Piedmont, where he treated trees as collaborators rather than mere subjects, often exploring the interplay between human life and natural growth patterns.

One of Penone’s earliest projects involved embedding a bronze cast of his hand into the trunk of a tree, capturing the gradual interaction between human and arboreal forms. This technique of merging human presence with organic material exemplifies his broader interest in symbiosis and transformation, themes sustained throughout his career. Early on, he also carved into wood beams to reveal the inner layers and growth rings of saplings, metaphorically uncovering the hidden life within timber.

His family background, influenced by his father’s farming trade in the Maritime Alps, shaped his view of nature’s fundamental role in culture and reality. Penone maintains a personal forest where fallen trees, such as chestnut and larch, become the raw basis for new works.

As an Arte Povera artist, Penone embraced humble materials and physical processes, reacting against the commercial art market of the 1960s. His toolkit incorporated wood, leaves, bark, stone, and even gestures and breath, yet bronze has remained a constant medium in his oeuvre. While bronze was considered too traditional or bourgeois during the movement’s early days, Penone reclaimed it for its capacity to symbolize permanence and the passage of time.

The “Reflection of Bronze” exhibition draws its title from this duality of bronze as a material that both preserves and immortalizes fleeting natural forms. The artist views his work as a means to outlast mortality, creating sculptures that bridge the present and future.

Penone’s large-scale bronze sculptures are manufactured through lost wax casting at the Del Chiaro foundry in Tuscany, which has partnered with him for over two decades. There, artisans meticulously construct each branch and stem using ancient techniques, applying natural patinas to impart wood-like textures to the metal. Completed works have been transported internationally for display at Gagosian’s New York gallery, where the installation transforms the space into an immersive forest environment. The gallery’s walls are clad with nearly 700 sheets of cork to evoke the hush and organic atmosphere of woodland.

Central to the exhibition is “Marsia,” a sculpture referencing the myth of the satyr Marsyas, who was flayed alive as punishment after challenging Apollo to a musical contest. The piece features a skinned tree trunk suspended by its bark, symbolizing transformation and the tension between vulnerability and strength.

Curated by Adam D. Weinberg, former director of the Whitney Museum, the show emphasizes bronze as a material that encapsulates texture and life’s ephemerality, rendering the sculptures as timeless records of natural processes. “It’s a time machine — it fixes a moment forever in place,” Weinberg said, underscoring Penone’s focus on life in flux and the convergence of past and future.

"The Reflection of Bronze" will be on view at the Gagosian gallery in New York through July 2.