Sala delle feste, 1998
exhibition view at Musée de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1998 
photo: ATTILIO MARANZANO

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Sala delle feste, 1998
exhibition view at Musée de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1998
photo: ATTILIO MARANZANO

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Un giorno così bianco, così bianco, exhibition view at Maxxi, Roma 2014
photo MATTEO CIAVATTELLA

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Stanza azzurra, Dedicata a mio fratello che amava gli azzurri, 2006.
installation view at Museum Kurhaus Kleve, 2009.
photo: WERNER J. HANNAPPEL

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Un giorno così bianco, così bianco, exhibition view at Maxxi, Roma 2014
photo MATTEO CIAVATTELLA

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Un giorno così bianco, così bianco, exhibition view at Maxxi, Roma 2014
photo MATTEO CIAVATTELLA

 

Nostalgia Roma, 2009.
installation view at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna di Roma, 2009
Courtesy OREDARIA Arti Contemporanee, Roma

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Veduta dello studio, 2013
photo: WERNER J.HANNAPPEL

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mostra Studio la Città , 2007
installation views at Studio La Città, Verona 

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Stanza, rosso porpora, 2010 

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Rosa, sposa, 2010

Scatola di colore, 1991
Courtesy Studio La Città, Verona

Disegno , 1987 
© Rizziero Arte 

Senza titolo, sottosopra, 2000
photo: DI PAOLO IMMAGINI
courtesy Galleria Lia Rumma, Napoli/Milano

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Studio, 1999

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Disco, 1981

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Pietra dipinta di rosso cinabro. Disco, 1981
photo: GIORGIO COLOMBO

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Rosa, fiore di pesco, 2009
photo: WERNER J.HANNAPPEL

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Documenta IX, Kassel, 1992.
photo © ATTILIO MARANZANO 

all images courtesy of the artist (unless otherwise stated)

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With a current exhibition at MAXXI in Roma, one at GAM in Turin and one at MADRE in Naples under the single title Un giorno così bianco, così bianco, we can easily stated that Italian artist ETTORE SPALLETTI is the man of the moment.

The three exhibitions on display this summer have been conceived like the chapters of a trip through Italy and aim to retrace SPALLETTI‘s whole artistic practice from the 1960s to the present day. According to the press release, the exhibition at the GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin presented (the exhibition closed on June 15, 2014) a selection of works from the artist’s studio and important private collections. In Roma, the exhibition concentrates a series of large environmental installations conceived specifically for the occasion with which the artist confronts such a highly characteristic architectural space. Finally the show at the MADRE Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples is currently featuring an excursus of historic and recent works retracing SPALLETTI’s artistic activities.

ETTORE SPALLETTI (1940) is best known for his minimalist paintings and sculptures that explore geometry, precision, material, colour and light. Finding his roots within Minimalism, Arte Povera and the Renaissance, his work takes the form of freestanding geometric sculptures, volumes and blocks of compact and calculated material – such as alabaster, marble, onyx, gold leaf, metals, precious stones, paper and pure pigment – as well as paintings even there is no painting in the traditional sense of the term, all having a soft color surface that constitutes an active and mobile destiny of seeing and touching.

I always refer to my works as paintings or sculptures. The eternal form of the panel encloses, as it always has for me, the inner content. Inside is the figurative imagination that the fragmentation of the pigment produces in the desire for an atmosphere, for an atmospheric image. . . . We’re in Venice, I’m thinking of San Marco, an amazing place, or of Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, the cathedral square: to look at those “objects” placed on the grass and then to think that de Chirico’s little painting with the tower is as big as that piazza. – ETTORE SPALLETTI in conversation with HAIM STEINBACH and GERMANO CELANT, Venice, Italy, 1992

This dynamic dialogue between the three major Italian public institutions not only demonstrates how ETTORE SPALLETTI is a seminal figure in the Italian contemporary art but also reveals a certain proactive nostalgia.

Here is a short summary of the dates and places:

– MAXXI, Rome 13 March – 14 September 2014 
http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/2013/12/20/ettore-spalletti/?lang=en
– MADRE, Naples 13 April – 18 August 2014
http://www.madrenapoli.it/en/events/a-tribute-to-ettore-spalletti/

If you understand Italian, I highly recommend to watch a short documentary dedicated to the artist  here

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