Francesco Arena wins the XXVI edition of the Pino Pascali Award

Italian artist Francesco Arena is the winner of the XXVI edition of the Pino Pascali Prize. For the first time in the history of the prize, the exhibition will be spread across the city of Polignano a Mare with a public art intervention curated by Bruna Roccasalva, Artistic Director of Fondazione Furla. The opening will be Saturday, July 6, 2024, 7 p.m. (ceremony at Largo Gelso).

The Pascali Prize Commission, chaired by Giuseppe Teofilo, artistic director of the Pascali Foundation, is composed of Francesco Guzzetti, art historian, and Nicoletta Lambertucci, curator at the Tate Modern, gave the following reasons for the choice: “Francesco Arena’s work achieves a perfect balance in the relationship between the work and the human being. As an authentic sculptor, the artist measures his works according to the parameters of the relationship or relation they establish with the viewer. Arena’s approach thus proves to be both humanistic and anthropological at the same time, capable of bringing man back to the center as an individual, but also and first and foremost as an active part of an environment, in terms of spatial relationship and behavior. His ability to rethink the codes of sculpture through a practice that is open to contamination with different spheres while remaining rooted in the sculptural tradition is an exemplary testimony to how this language is capable of continuous renewal. From performance to literature, the multiple admixtures that recur within his production unhinge those codes that see sculptural works as static propositions and project them into an open dimension that transforms sculpture itself into an experience.”

The exhibition, titled Francesco Arena. 30 swings, is realized in partnership with the 23rd edition of the Festival “Il Libro Possibile” (July 10-13, Polignano a Mare; July 23-27, Vieste) in synergy with the spirit of the artist’s research, which sublimates by means of sculptural plastic processes and data of literary inspiration and which represent the anthropological dimensional measure of his work.

Francesco Arena (Torre Santa Susanna, Brindisi, 1978) lives and works in Cassano delle Murge, Bari, Italy. Francesco Arena has exhibited his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, in public and private spaces. Solo exhibitions at important institutions include: Il fulmine governa ogni cosa, Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome (2023); Dieci minuti e un soffio, Palazzo Borromeo, Milan (2022); Onze mille cent quatre-vingt sept jours, Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2013); Trittico 57, Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2012); Cratere, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands (2010). In 2013 he participated in the exhibition project “Vice Versa” for the Italian pavilion of the 55. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. In 2019 he is among the winners of the fifth edition of the Italian Council promoted by the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture. Francesco Arena’s works are in the collections of the most prestigious national and international museums: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia; Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring, NY; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museion, Bolzano; Madre - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples.

Francesco Arena wins the XXVI edition of the Pino Pascali Award

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.