Italian artist Giuseppe Penone's solo exhibition "Thoughts in the Roots" at London's Serpentine South Gallery presents a decades-spanning collection of sculptural works that explore the poetic relationship between human bodies and the natural world. The exhibition, running through September 7, 2025, showcases pieces created from 1969 to the present, offering a unique perspective on environmental themes that predates much of today's climate crisis discourse.
In an era when the art world increasingly commissions ecology-themed exhibitions due to growing climate concerns, Penone's work stands out for its long-established visual approach to human-nature relationships. Rather than employing contemporary ecohumanities terminology or explicitly addressing ecosystem complexities, the artist presents trees as poetic entities and frequently uses his own body as a representation of humanity as a whole.
The exhibition's central room creates a particularly striking sensory experience through its quiet simplicity and powerful atmosphere. The walls are lined with mesh panels containing layers of laurel leaves, whose subtle yet intoxicating scent fills the space with every breath visitors take. This aromatic environment immediately draws attention to the fundamental connection between human respiration and plant life.
A key piece in this central space features a hybrid metal sculpture depicting a human lung with branches sprouting from it, highlighting the anatomical parallels between plant growth patterns and the human respiratory system. The artwork emphasizes the essential reciprocal relationship between plants and animals that creates a livable atmosphere: while plants photosynthesize carbon to produce oxygen, animals consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Through this piece, Penone demonstrates that lungs and leaves serve as meeting points between species and sites of environmental interaction.
On the opposite wall stands Penone's "Alberi libro" (Book Trees) from 2017, a work that required the artist to carefully carve away the outer rings of milled logs layer by layer. This painstaking process exposes the tree's core and reveals the small nubs that once extended outward to become branches, creating a visual record of the object's material history. Each carved piece remains partially encased within its larger wooden block, resembling both a young sapling and its fully mature form simultaneously.
The "Book Trees" sculpture expands on the traditional concept of determining a tree's age through its growth rings, functioning as both a physical record of time and a space where past and present merge. This approach reflects Penone's broader artistic philosophy of revealing hidden histories within natural materials and exploring the temporal dimensions of organic growth.
Several of Penone's works are also installed throughout the public park surrounding the gallery, extending the exhibition's reach into the outdoor environment. Among these is "Alberto folgorato" (Thunderstruck Tree) from 2012, for which the artist cast a Belgian tree that had been struck by lightning in bronze. This monumental work possesses the substantial presence and weight characteristic of public sculpture.
However, the outdoor "Thunderstruck Tree" lacks some of the intimate qualities that define many of Penone's indoor works, where the visual continuity between human skin and tree bark creates a more personal connection. The bronze casting process, while preserving the tree's form for posterity, removes the organic vitality that makes his other pieces so compelling. Visitors must consider whether immortalizing this particular tree in bronze holds meaningful significance, especially since Penone's metallic version offers little to local wildlife, unlike the living trees that surround it in the park.
Other notable works in the exhibition include "Idee di pietra" (Ideas of Stone) from 2010-2024, combining bronze with river stones, and pieces from his "Verde del bosco" (Forest Green) series, including works from 1986 and 2017. The piece "A occhi chiusi" (With Eyes Closed) from 2009 incorporates acrylic, glass microspheres, and acacia thorns on canvas alongside white Carrara marble, demonstrating Penone's diverse material palette.
The exhibition was curated by Claude Adjil and Hans Ulrich Obrist in collaboration with Alexa Chow, bringing together works that span more than five decades of Penone's artistic practice. This comprehensive survey reveals the artist's consistent fascination with the interconnectedness of human and vegetal bodies, presented through a poetic rather than scientific lens.
Penone's approach to environmental themes carries particular weight due to his decades-long engagement with these concepts, offering insights that developed before the establishment of contemporary climate discourse and visual vocabulary. His work reminds viewers that the relationship between humans and nature operates through fundamental biological processes like breathing, growth, and the passage of time, creating connections that are both intimate and universal.
