biography

Francesco Arena was born in Mesagne, Brindisi, Italy in 1978. He lives and works in Cassano delle Murge, Bari, Italy.

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.

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Francesco Arena was born in Mesagne, Brindisi, Italy in 1978. He lives and works in Cassano delle Murge, Bari, Italy.

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: 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: 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).

In 2013 his work was included in Vice Versa, Italian Pavilion of the 55th Venice Art Biennale.

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images

Piccolo masso di oggi e di ieri, 2022

Lava stone, newspapers

90 × 70 × 40 cm

Photo: Nicola Morittu

Piccolo masso di oggi e di ieri, 2022 (detail)

Photo: Francesco Arena

Stair, 2021

Stone

20 × 91 × 34 cm

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Le dita delle mani, 2020-2022

10 found objects and clay sculptures realized in a minute

Variable dimensions

Photo: Lele Buonerba

Orizzonte lasco, 2021

Book, steel cable, clamps

Environmental dimensions

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Orizzonte lasco, 2021

Book, steel cable, clamps

Environmental dimensions

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Foro con anno, 2020

Stone, diary, aluminium wire

29 × 22 × 23 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

L'uomo, 2022

Stone, steel wire, hooks, book

23 × 17 × 30 cm

Cube (La giornata di uno scrutatore) – Italo Calvino, 2020

Book, pink marble

19,5 × 19,5 × 19,5 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

The Black Cube, 2021

Black marble from Belgium, Metallica's 'The Black Album' vinyl

31 × 31 × 31 cm

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Ardesia con minuto (rettangolo), 2019

Slate, magnetic tape

81 × 61 cm

Photo: Nicola Morittu

Ardesia con minuto (rettangolo), 2019 (detail)

Slate, magnetic tape

81 × 61 cm

Argilla con giorno, 2019

Clay, charcoal

approx. 50 × 20 × 20 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Senza titolo (un metro di libri letti), 2018-2019

Nero Marocco marble, books and nylon

26,5 × 100 × 19 cm

Marble between 20 years, 2018

White marble, diaries

16,5 × 16,5 × 21 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Eisenhower between cubes, 2016

Stone, ground, steel wire

204 × 11 × 13 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Cumulo (scarpe e macerie), 2016

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

Dimensions variable

Extrême Orient, 2017

Book

166 × 15 × 2,5 cm

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Extrême Occident, 2013

Book

166 × 15 × 2,5 cm

Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Pasolini, 2009

Found objects

170 × 16 × 24 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

public exhibitions

Parco archeologico di Ostia antica sinagoga

Ostia, Italy

Arte in memoria 11

29.1 – 16.4.2023

Palazzo Borromeo

Milan, Italy

Dieci minuti e un soffio

30.3 – 23.6.2022

Photo: Lele Buonerba

DAMA

Palazzo Carignano, Torino

APERTO

30.10 – 7.11.2021

Courtesy DAMA, l'artista, Galleria Raffaella Cortese e Sprovieri. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Museo Madre

Napoli

Utopia Distopia: il mito del progresso partendo dal sud

9.7 – 8.11.2021

Photo: Amedeo Benestante

Galleria Civica Trento

Trento

Camera Picta

19.6 – 19.9.2021

BASE / Progetti per l’arte

Florence

Una cartolina, un passo, una linea e una pietra

19.9 – 19.10.2020

Photo: Leonardo Morfini

Art Today Association Center for Contemporary Art

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

After Pasolini - Visions of Today

4.9 – 4.10.2020

Photo: Asen Krastenov

Parco Archeologico del Colosseo

Rome

Anello

Photo: Francesco Arena

The Open Box

Milan

Letto

10.12.2019 – 30.1.2020

Photo: Roberto Marossi

Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

St. Gallen

The Humans

15.9.2018 – 17.3.2019

Photo: Sebastian Stadler

Fondazione Merz

Turin

Mario Merz Prize. Finalists exhibition | 2nd Edition

8.3 – 21.5.2017

Photo: Renato Ghiazza

La Triennale di Milano

Milan

Ennesima. An Exhibition of Seven Exhibitions on Italian Art

28.11.2015 – 6.3.2016

Olnick Spanu Art Program

Garrison, NY

Posatoi, 2014

55th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia

Arsenale di Venezia

Venice

Massa sepolta (Burgos, Benedicta, Batajnica 02, Ivan Polije), 2013, Soil, wood, concrete, iron

1.6 – 24.11.2013

Photo: Roberto Marossi

FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

Reims, France

Onze mille cent quatre-vingt sept jours

1.2 – 21.4.2013

Photo: Martin Argyroglo

De Vleeshal

Middelburg

Cratere

18.4 – 13.6.2010

Photo: Leo Van Kampen

press

Essere il tempo. Un dialogo con Francesco Arena

Lorenzo Madaro

la Quadriennale di Roma

May 2023

Francesco Arena, intervista visiva #02

Costanza Fraia Ketoff

il Manifesto

March 15, 2023

TERZA MOSTRA: TRE COSE. Intervista con Francesco Arena

Giuseppe Amedeo Arnesano

ATP Diary

November 12, 2021

I numeri che misurano consapevolezza

Teresa Macrì

Il Manifesto

March 13, 2020

L’arte come narrazione

Elena Bordignon

ATP Diary

March 20, 2019

Atrocity Exhibition: Francesco Arena’s Politics of Imperceptibility

Ara H. Merjian

Frieze

March 8, 2019

In Primo Piano: Francesco Arena

Ginevra Bria

Flash Art Italia

February 20, 2017

Francesco Arena

Fabio Cherstich

Vogue Italia

June 13, 2013

publications

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

video


Francesco Arena – Terza mostra: tre cose

2021

Exhibition at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan


Anello

2020

Film by Domenico Palma documenting the realization of Francesco Arena's site-specific sculpture for Rome's Parco Archeologico del Colosseo


Francesco Arena, Masse Sepolte

2013

Video by Domenico Palma documenting the construction of Masss Sepolte, Francesco Arena's work in vice versa, the Italian Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale

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