64 - Ettore Spalletti (Italian, 1940-2019)

Ettore Spalletti (Italian, 1940-2019) I colori - Rosa Incarnata - 1988 Tempera and plaster on wood 50 x 56 cm (3 parts) Provenance: Galerie Peter Pakesch, Vienna (1992) The Robert and Suzanne Pannier Collection, Bruges Published: Günther Förg, Christina Iglesias, Ettore Spalletti, Jan Vercruysse, Franz West, Christopher Wool [exhibition catalog], Graz, 1989 (ill.) Exhibited: Galerie Peter Pakesch, Graz, Summer 1989 [Six simultaneous shows], (ill.) With a photocertificate by the artist, dated 1993. Executed in 1988, I colori – Rosa Incarnata is an example of Ettore Spalletti’s sustained exploration of colour as a physical and spatial presence. Throughout his career, Spalletti developed a highly personal language in which monochrome surfaces, subtle tonal variations and carefully balanced forms investigate the relationship between colour, light and perception. His works occupy a space between painting and sculpture, where colour is not applied to an object but seems to emerge from its very material structure. Composed of three elements, the present work consists of softly coloured squares in a delicate shade of pink. Their surfaces possess a quiet luminosity, while the carefully shaped volumes give the colour a physical presence beyond that of a painted image. Along the edges, exceptionally fine ceramic strips follow the contours of each element with slight irregularities, creating a delicate border that appears to loosen itself from the solid forms it surrounds. This apparent fragility is central to the work’s poetry. The edges suggest something temporary and vulnerable, yet they are made from a hard and enduring material requiring extraordinary precision. Through this tension between solidity and delicacy, Spalletti transforms a simple geometric form into an object suspended between painting and sculpture, where the precision of its construction is counterbalanced by the fragile appearance of its edges.