The 2024 Pino Pascali Award - 26th Edition has been granted to the artist Francesco Arena (Torre Santa Susanna, Brindisi, Italy, 1978), who presents the project 30 altalene (30 swings).

For the first time in the history of the award, the exhibition will be spread throughout the city of Polignano a Mare with a public art intervention curated by Bruna Roccasalva, Artistic Director of the Furla Foundation. Inauguration Saturday 6 July 2024, 7pm.

The Pino Pascali Award Commission, chaired by Giuseppe Teofilo, artistic director of the Pascali Foundation, is made up of Francesco Guzzetti, art historian and Nicoletta Lambertucci, curator at the Tate Modern,

Francesco Arena has long been carrying out a formal and conceptual research on the potentials of sculpture through a practice that employs traditional materials and techniques, as well as contaminations in different fields: from performance to literature, the multiple overlaps that can be found within his production reinterpret the norms of sculpture and redefine its parameters and boundaries.

Arena's works are often the result of measurements that refer to heights, weights, and distances - both spatial and temporal - related to himself and his life, as well as to social and political events that have determined the course of history. Artworks' shapes, dimensions, and materials result from the convergence of these elements. The artist often uses his own body as a unit of measure because the relationship of mutual influence between the artwork and the human being - whether we are referring to the artist himself or the audience - is crucial throughout his work. This aspect is even more evident in all those works in which sculpture also takes on a performative dimension, with either an artist's performance or audience participation, as is the case of 30 altalene, the project conceived for the 2024 Pino Pascali Award - 26th Edition.

By crossbreeding the idea of play with the most intimate and thoughtful dimension of literature, Arena has created a series of bronze sculptures formally designed to be placed in Polignano a Mare's public places.

As the title itself indicates, 30 altalene consists of an installation of thirty swings scattered around various spots in the city: a spread-out artwork that occupies the public territory thoroughly and, like a net, permeates the fabric of the city to be used by anyone, citizens as well as tourists.

The thirty swings, placed in different locations, in a square or overlooking the sea, in the little alleyways of the city center, or in residential areas, are all made of bronze and carry an aphorism, a short sentence, or a poem. Four of these sentences are d'après by famous authors that Arena has rephrased and changed starting from the original quote. All the other phrases are by writers, poets, and philosophers the artist has invited in collaboration with "Il Libro possibile" festival. The artwork has a collective dimension, especially in terms of accessibility, as it is available to the community and requires the audience's involvement and participation to be activated.  Such an approach is also an integral part of the genesis of the artwork, which takes shape thanks to the contribution of the authors and writers invited by the artist to collaborate.

The origin of the swing dates back to Greek mythology. However, among the many references to the origins of this game, there is also a very old tradition of folk music that belongs to the Apulian territory, the "swing songs". These songs, which originated in southern Italy and were especially widespread in Apulia, mainly consisted of courtship rituals and were defined as "Canti all'Altalena" (Singing on the swing) because they were associated with the use of the swing, on which singers used to sit shoulder to shoulder and sing while swinging.

The coincidence between the artist's choice to create an installation around this timeless and fantastic game and the local popular tradition strengthens the connection between the artwork and the context that hosts it, thus emphasizing its extraordinary capacity to fit organically into its social fabric, to speak a language that everyone can easily understand, and to lend itself to interaction with the public.

Francesco Arena's work refers to an object familiar to everyone, beloved by children because of its playful dimension and by adults because its oscillatory motion gives them vertigo and a sense of freedom. By doing so, the artist successfully faces the challenge of acting within a public space, which entails stepping outside the art realm and facing a much broader dimension, where accessibility and sharing become indispensable elements for any artwork that aims to integrate itself into the context in which it stands.

Authors of the phrases written on the swings:

Antonella Anedda, Gian Maria Annovi, Franco Arminio, Marco Belpoliti, Chiara Bottici, Annarita Briganti, Giulia Caminito, Gianrico Carofiglio, Alessandra Chiricosta, Mario Desiati, Paolo Di Paolo, Peppe Fiore, Maurizio Fiorino, Mario Fortunato, Umberto Galimberti, Gabriella Genisi, Tommaso Giartosio, Nicola La Gioia, Antonella Lattanzi, Teresa Macrì, Matteo Marchesini, Sandra Petrignani, Rosella Postorino, Laura Pugno, Luca Sommi, Federico Vercellone, d’après Daniele Del Giudice, d’après Jon Fosse, d’après Fedor Dostoevsky, d’après Lev Tolstoj.