Francesco Arena

Works

Altalena, 2022, Bandiera, 2007, Maniglia, 2023

Miart 2024

Altalena2022

Miart 2024

Bronze

Variable dimensions

Altalena2024

Bronze, rope

Variable dimensions

Lo Starec2023

Copper

269 x 70 x 46 cm

Angolo scontento (Hommage à la mort de Sigmund Freud)2019

Copper, nautical wood, steel cable, person born in 1939

140 x 655 x 455 cm

Cassetta2023

Bronze

63 x 31 x 45 cm

Ed of 3 + 2 AP

Corner (Anna, Marianna, Francesco)2015

Bronze

166,5 x 156 x 106 cm

Eisenhower between cubes2016

Stone, ground, steel wire

204 × 11 × 13 cm

Orizzonte lasco2021

Book, steel cable, clamps

Environmental dimensions

Orizzonte lasco2021

Book, steel cable, clamps

Environmental dimensions

Foro con anno2020

Stone, diary, aluminium wire

29 × 22 × 23 cm

Senza titolo (Ti abbraccio teneramente)2025

Bronze, stones, book

43 × 14 × 64 cm

Senza titolo (Ti abbraccio teneramente)2025

Detail

Bronze, stones, book

43 × 14 × 64 cm

L'uomo2022

Stone, steel wire, hooks, book

23 × 17 × 30 cm

Cube (Le città del mondo)2019

Marmo di Carrara, "Le città del mondo" di Elio Vittorini

22,5 × 22,5 × 22,5 cm

Marble between 20 years2018

White marble, diaries

16,5 × 16,5 × 21 cm

Le dita delle mani2020-2022

10 found objects and clay sculptures realized in a minute

Variable dimensions

Argilla con giorno2019

Clay, charcoal

approx. 50 × 20 × 20 cm

Cumulo (scarpe e macerie)2016

Artist's used shoes, debris from the artist's studio floor

Variable dimensions

Biography

Francesco Arena was born in Mesagne, Brindisi, Italy in 1978. He lives and works in Cassano delle Murge, Bari, Italy.
He works with Galleria Raffaella Cortese since 2015.

If one tried to summarize a large part of Francesco Arena’s work into a formula, it would be as follows: numbers that take on form. From a linguistic point of view his work can be read as a development, a personal “derivation”, of sculptural processes that arise from the geometric shapes typical of Minimal art and from the more archetypal ones of Arte Povera. But from a thematic point of view his pieces are often the translation of formulae and numbers linked to private and personal facts.

Arena’s research moves along two tracks: that of collective history, mainly national, and that of personal history. These form a sort of two lines that touch, overlap, cross each other. In his performances, installations and sculptures, the narrative creates the objects. They can be everyday objects such as diaries, cigars, living room furniture, or made out off traditional sculptural materials, such as marble, slate, bronze. Arena always imposes at the beginning a rule to be followed, a fact that remains a fixed point in the piece’s production process: the weight of a boat used by illegal immigrants reaching the coast of Lampedusa, the distance travelled by the anarchist Pinelli in his last day as a free man in Milan, the volume of a crater made by a bomb explosion. These are starting points that determine the form, the dimensions and at times even the materials of the piece: “Facts are a wilderness where different views confront and oppose each other; facts interest me as units of measurement around which to build a sculpture… a weight, a distance or a surface inform the work and determine its form or dimensions.” he said. The facts chosen by Arena often come from the reservoir of personal history, but also from collective memory, which was initially focused above all on Italy, but which has now opened up to global situations and events.

Several solo exhibitions have been devoted to the artist, including: Il fulmine governa ogni cosa, Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome (2023); Dieci minuti e un soffio, Palazzo Borromeo, Milan (2022); Una cartolina, un passo, una linea e una pietra, BASE / Progetti per l’arte, Florence, Italy (2019); Letto, The Open Box, Milan, Italy (2019); Orizzonte, Art Basel | Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland (2017); Francesco Arena. Perimetro con quattro opere in uno spazio, TRA Treviso ricerca arte, Treviso, Italy (2016); Jannis Kounellis – Francesco Arena, Palazzo Baronale, Novoli, Italy (2015); Francesco Arena: Posatoi, Olnick Spanu Art Program, Garrison, NY, USA (2014); Onze mille cent quatre-vingt sept jours, Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2013); Trittico 57, Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2012); Com’è piccola Milano, Peep Hole, Milan, Italy (2011); Art Basel | Statement, Basel, Switzerland (2010); Teste, Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, Fabriano, Italy (2010); Cratere, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2010).

Selected group shows include: 30 Altalene, Polignano a Mare, Italy (2024), Votiva / Parabita per il Contemporaneo, Parabita, Italy (2024); Leggere il Tempo. Libri nell’Arte, Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino, Genoa, Italy (2024); Paesaggio/Unpacking My History: Francesco Arena, Rossella Biscotti, Claire Fontaine, Quadriennale di Roma, Rome, Italy (2024); E la mia Patria è dove l’erba trema, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (2023), Rome, Italy; Afterimage, MAXXI L’Aquila, Italy (2022); Utopia Distopia: il mito del progresso partendo dal Sud, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina – Museo Madre, Naples, Italy (2021); Camera Picta, Galleria Civica di Trento, Trento, Italy (2021); The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA (2021); There will never be a door. You are inside. Works from the Coleção Teixeira de Freitas, Santander Art Gallery, Madrid (2019); The Humans, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2018); Sculpture Projects Ping Yao, Pingyao, China (2018); Re-Evolution, MAXXI, Rome (2017); Mario Merz Prize, 2nd Edition, Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy (2017); Par tibi, Roma, nihil, Area archeologica del Palatino, Rome (2016); The 3rd Nanjing International Art Festival, Baijia Lake Museum, Nanjing, China (2016); Ennesima, Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2015); Ritratto dell’artista da giovane, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2014); La storia che non ho vissuto. Testimone indiretto, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2012); Sotto la Strada la Spiaggia, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2012); Il bel paese dell’arte, GAMEC, Bergamo, Italy (2011); Les sculptures meurent aussi, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Mulhouse, France (2010); Annisettanta. Il decennio lungo del secolo breve, Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2007).

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Gallery Exhibitions

Public exhibitions

La Spiaggia
31 March – 4 April 2025
Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan
Senza mai sfiorire. Densità e leggerezza nella scultura italiana contemporanea
14 December 2024 – 23 February 2025
Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto
Cutting Clouds | Tagliando le nuvole
26 September 2024 – 27 January 2025
Museo Madre, Napoli
30 Altalene
6 July – 16 October 2024
Polignano a Mare
Paesaggio/Unpacking My History: Francesco Arena, Rossella Biscotti, Claire Fontaine
25 November 2023 – 21 January 2024
Quadriennale di Roma - Quotidiana, Museo di Roma – Palazzo Braschi
Il fulmine governa ogni cosa
22 September – 7 December 2023
Fondazione Nicola del Roscio, Roma
Arte in memoria 11
29 January – 16 April 2023
Parco archeologico di Ostia antica sinagoga, Ostia, Italy
Dieci minuti e un soffio
30 March – 23 June 2022
Palazzo Borromeo , Milan, Italy
APERTO
30 October – 7 November 2021
DAMA, Palazzo Carignano, Torino
Utopia Distopia: il mito del progresso partendo dal sud
9 July – 8 November 2021
Museo Madre, Napoli
Camera Picta
19 June – 19 September 2021
Galleria Civica Trento, Trento
Una cartolina, un passo, una linea e una pietra
19 September – 19 October 2020
BASE / Progetti per l’arte , Florence
After Pasolini - Visions of Today
4 September – 4 October 2020
Art Today Association Center for Contemporary Art, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Anello
Letto
10 December 2019 – 30 January 2020
The Open Box, Milan
The Humans
15 September 2018 – 17 March 2019
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen
Mario Merz Prize. Finalists exhibition | 2nd Edition
8 March – 21 May 2017
Fondazione Merz, Turin
Ennesima. An Exhibition of Seven Exhibitions on Italian Art
28 November 2015 – 6 March 2016
La Triennale di Milano, Milan
Posatoi, 2014
Massa sepolta (Burgos, Benedicta, Batajnica 02, Ivan Polije), 2013, Soil, wood, concrete, iron
1 June – 24 November 2013
55th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale di Venezia, Venice
Onze mille cent quatre-vingt sept jours
1 February – 21 April 2013
FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France
Cratere
18 April – 13 June 2010
De Vleeshal, Middelburg

Press

Francesco Arena, un equilibrio non lineare: 30 altalene a Polignano a Mare
Exibart
July 9, 2024
Essere il tempo. Un dialogo con Francesco Arena
la Quadriennale di Roma
May 2023
Francesco Arena, intervista visiva #02
il Manifesto
March 15, 2023
TERZA MOSTRA: TRE COSE. Intervista con Francesco Arena
ATP Diary
November 12, 2021
I numeri che misurano consapevolezza
Il Manifesto
March 13, 2020
L’arte come narrazione
ATP Diary
March 20, 2019
Atrocity Exhibition: Francesco Arena’s Politics of Imperceptibility
Frieze
March 8, 2019
In Primo Piano: Francesco Arena
Flash Art Italia
February 20, 2017
Francesco Arena
Vogue Italia
June 13, 2013

Publications

Francesco Arena: il fulmine governa ogni cosa
Francesco Arena, Carlotta Spinelli, Federico Vercellone
Lenz Press
2024
Strata. Arte italiana dal 2000. Le parole degli artisti
Vincenzo de Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini
Lenz Press
Milan
2023
Francesco Arena, 5468 days
Texts by Vincenzo De Bellis and Jacopo Crivelli Visconti
Skira
Milan
2019
Francesco Arena, Six Horizons, Six Roads, Ten Landscapes
Texts by: Mario Fortunato and Andrea Viliani
Cura Books
Rome
2017
Francesco Arena - Perimetro con quattro opere in uno spazio
Pixartprinting
Venice
2016
Francesco Arena – Works 2004/2014
Beccaria, M.; Benedetti, L.; Derieux, F.; Merjian, A.
Cura Books
Rome
2014
Francesco Arena - Posatoi
Francesco Arena
MIA-Magazzino of Italian Art
New York
2014
Masse Sepolte
Francesco Arena
Cura Books
2013
Francesco Arena
Francesco Arena
Edizioni Èxòrma
Rome
2011

Videos

Francesco Arena. 30 Altalene
2024
Francesco Arena – Terza mostra: tre cose
2021
Anello
2020
Francesco Arena, Masse Sepolte
2013
La verità dietro le opere di Francesco Arena: un’intervista inedita alla Fonderia Battaglia
2025