The exhibition organized at the Museo del Paesaggio in Verbania from July to September 1976 and curated by Jole de Sanna represents a relevant moment of reflection around the concept of sculpture. In addition to Staccioli’s work, it included those of Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Piero Manzoni, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Giulio Paolini, Medardo Rosso and Antonio Trotta.
Staccioli takes part in the debate by developing a reflection on the role and function of the contemporary artist, who has the duty to elaborate forms of participation and democratic management of cultural work, seeking the connection between manual and intellectual labour.

For the occasion, he then studied an intervention to build at the walls of the old prisons, a place with a strong symbolic charge: a grand curved arch characterised by two iron spikes at the top and bottom that plays the dual role of buttress and, at the same time, memory of the suffering of the place.