Francesco Arena

Stone

From October 2, 2021

Villa San Michele, Anacapri

Francesco Arena's work entitled Stone is a stone block which has been salvaged from its destiny of being transformed into a crafted object so that it could become a sculpture.

A famous phrase from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is inscribed on the work: "The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare", bearing witness to the resistance of matter as opposed to the duration of human life. In its new setting, presented on the occasion of the 2021 Festival del Paesaggio di Anacapri, Arena's work enters into dialogue with the archaeological finds pre­ served at Villa San Michele, evoking the stratification of time and alluding to the fact that those things which surround us, have existed before us and will continue to exist after us.