Separation is the basis of evolution, both in terms of our personal lives as well as of our thoughts, thoughts which become fragmented. Fragmentation gives rise to life to something new, it becomes a synonym of abundance and allows us toanalyze things from different perspectives.

 The four bronze sculptures in the exhibit have been divided in two and the distance between the two parts becomes part of the sculpture. The cut is a sculptural element and the two complementary parts of each work are positioned at a precise distance, the proportions of which correspond exactly to the artist’s body, to the space in which he lives, to the exhibit venue, or to the spatial and architectural context of the city hosting the exhibit.

 Unlike his previous sculptures characterized by a distinctly precise geometric form, in these works Francesco Arena places emphasis on the manuality, the inherent organicity, the sheer force of the tear, the division and the manner in which the material - in this case bronze - preserves this memory.

 The smallest work on exhibit is a wall installation entitled Slab (hand). The two parts have been placed at a distance of 20 cm apart maintaining the same distance that there is between the tip of the artist’s right hand thumb and the tip of his little finger at its maximum extension. The hand, which at one time was used as a unit of measure, extends as if attempting to grasp several things at once.

 The two sections of the work entitled Tube (wall) are divided by a wall which places them in close relation with the architecture of the exhibition space.

 Instead, a distance of 20.95 meters - which corresponds precisely to the diagonal of the two extreme corners of the artist’s house – separates the two halves of the Ball (house) respectively situated in the exhibit area and the gallery’s former exhibit area which currently serves as the offices.

 The two parts of the Block (city) related to the space of the city of Naples are positioned exactly at a distance of 1 km. apart, one is exhibited in the gallery and the other in Gennaro Bottone’s Dolce Idea chocolate shop in via Gennaro Serra 78.

 The generally sense of the exhibit can be perceived in the site-specific installation entitled Passaggio which entails a changing the characteristic passageway which separates the two exhibit sites by reducing it to 90 cm in width and 206 cm in height, that is, to the standard size of a normal door.

 “At a certain point in life, man tends to contract and grow smaller; aging and illness immediately come to mind. For an elderly person or someone who is ill, the space of one room may be sufficient. In the end people need fewer and fewer things until reaching the essential when the idea of accumulation becomes void. Accumulating things only to free oneself of them. This is the sense of our passage”.