Studio per Soffio di creta, 1978  
coffee and pencil on paper 

Soffio, 1978  
India ink and pencil on paper 

Soffio, 1978  
coffee, India ink and pencil on paper 

Presenza-Assenza, 1978  
coffee, India ink and pencil on paper 

Soffio, 1978  
coffee and pencil on paper 

Senza titolo, 1977  
coffee and pencil on paper 

Collezione privata 

In his preparatory sketches for the Soffi series, Giuseppe Penone highlighted the relation between the body and its invisible extension - the breath. By breathing out, the body propels a volume of air into the surrounding space. Penone considered this an automatic, continuous sculptural element, which he subsequently expressed as a terracotta jar shape into which the volume of the body producing the air was pressed. Evocative of a fertile womb, the sculptures made from the preparatory studies on display here derive from the concept of genesis expressed in mythology and in the Old Testament, where the breath is the origin of mankind and the generator of life.