“The internal dimensions of a metal tank are specifically designed to contain within it a cubic metre of sea water. Internally the tank is 13 metres and 60 centimetres long, as long as the diagonal of the gallery space. Given this length and establishing that the inner section of the tank is a square, the internal depth of the tank is 27.2 cm; in this tank the cubic metre of seawater can fill all the space without needing any other supporting element. The liquid adapts to its container and the unstable and mobile element stabilises thanks to the metal the tank is made of. The work is clearly a piece of landscape, it is a sculpture that is both full and empty, the fullness of water exists thanks to the empty space in the tank”. (Francesco Arena, 2019)

Central to this work is the relationship that the artist establishes between an immense space, such as the sea, and the enclosed, concentrated space created within the metal tank. Arena juxtaposes the natural landscape with the architectural space, in this case the gallery, with the measurements of the human body acting as a meeting point. The precise volume of seawater in the tank (1 cubic metre - 1000 litres) reveals its humanness, the artist purposely uses standard measures in his works, precisely because they were created by human beings to give order to the elements of nature. “Arena’s sculptures draw ever closer to their own origins, because prior to sculpture there exists only landscape, which is the historical or, to put it another way, the human form that natures takes when she manifests herself. It is no accident that the landscapes Arena interrogates, continually deconstructing and reconstructing it in these pieces, is a landscape not innocent, but the results of calculations, conveniences, elaborations, comparison and readings, at the heart of which there sits the physical, corporeal dimension of the artist himself…from these works we learn how tall Francesco is, how much he weighs, the distance between his eyes, the size of his feet, the length of his legs. Yet there is no trace of narcissism in this frenetic declaration of self. Because his work, in speaking of the self, speaks of something else, by which I mean it speaks of the captious and reversible universe that is reality”. (Mario Fortunato, 2017)