an individual onto what is outside his body, takes on the dimension of an interior and the imprints traced on the walls of the space envelop the viewer, as in the installations he made for the exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum of Lucerne (1977), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1981), The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (1983), or the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris (1984). The connection between the act of contact and the process of memory became more prominent in Vaso ("Vase") of 1975. This consisted of a terracotta vase from an archeological excavation and an expansion, in four bronze sculptures, of the fingerprints left on it by the potter. Here, for the first time, Penone worked in bronze. In 1978, Penone began a series of works in clay titled Soffio ("Breath"). With these works, he reproduced the volume of the breath against his body in the form of a large clay vase, making visible a performative gesture of the artist. In 1979, he also produced Soffio di foglie ("Breath of Leaves"), in which the volume of the breath and the imprint of the body of the artist are impressed in a pile of leaves. With his Patate ("Potatoes") of 1977, Penone inserted himself into organic forms. In this work, Penone grew potatoes inside moulds of his face, so as to make them appear like parts of his face, such as his ears and his nose. This process was repeated again with his Zucche ("Pumpkins") of 1978, which saw Penone create bronzes sculptures from casts of pumpkins grown inside facial casts. This work was shown for the first time at his solo exhibition at the Halle für Internationale Neue Kunst of Zürich in 1980, and is always accompanied by the sculpture Nero d' Africa ("Black of Africa"), a block on marble partially sculpted in the negative and positive form of the artist's own figure. 1980s In 1981 Penone began a series titled Essere Fiume ("Being the River"). For this series, Penone chose a rock from a river bed and then went to the source of the river to extract the same type of stone. The artist then painstakingly carved the stone to replicate the natural processes that have shaped the rock in the river, copying the ricochets and bumps as closely as possible. He then exhibits the two stones side by side. In mimicking