Fendi brings Penone sculpture and show to Rome

(ANSA) - Rome, January 13 - Fendi is paying tribute to Rome by installing a sculpture by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone at its flagship store in the spring and by hosting a survey of the artist's work at its exhibition space in the Palace of Italian Civilization in the city's southern EUR district starting this month.
    The sculpture consists of two intertwined bronze trees measuring 18 and nine metres tall, holding an 11-tonne sculpted block of marble five metres off the ground.
    Fendi president and CEO Pietro Beccari said his company is "very proud to donate this beautiful work of art by Giuseppe Penone to Rome, its residents and the millions of tourists that come to visit the Eternal City".
    "Leaves of Stone expresses the deep bond with Rome and the importance of this bond in the history of Fendi," Beccari said.
    "Penone is an Italian artist of international fame with whom we share the passion for creation, for know-how, and for the dialogue between tradition and modernity, cardinal Fendi values," he said.
    The survey exhibition, titled "Matrice" (Matrix), will be free and open to the public from January 27-July 16.
    It will include 18 works spanning the 1970s to today, many of which have never been publicly shown in Italy.