Soffio 3 1978

This is Giuseppe Penone’s Soffio 3, a terracotta sculpture, and it's like a breath made solid. Penone’s got this way of making you feel the earth, the processes that shape it, right in your gut. Look at the surface, the skin of this thing. The texture isn't smooth or uniform; it’s rough, almost visceral. You can see the traces of the artist's hands, the pressure and pull of the clay, revealing the physical struggle involved in its making. The opening at the top it's like a mouth, a silent scream. This is a piece about transformation, about turning something soft into something hard, something fleeting into something permanent. Penone’s work, like that of his contemporary Arte Povera artists, challenges our perception of nature and artifice. It asks, what is real? What is constructed? And can we ever truly separate the two?