THOUGH well exhibited internationally, Ettore Spalletti has shown little in England — his only other public exhibition before his current one at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds came in 1995.
The Leeds show occupies all three gallery spaces, and is an installation that draws together a range of predominantly wall-based works from the past 20 years. It is a show of monochromatic pieces, most rectilinear, one a free-standing column, and its theme is the moods of colour, and how these moods are modified by light and atmosphere.
The first room consists of grey works, the second of blue, the third of grey again. You could call it a journey through the day, if you like.
Spalletti is obsessed by light, its strange vicissitudes. He calls one light “annoying”, another “dusty”. He even enjoys light which is too strong for the eyes. He mixes his own pigments, from oil and gesso. He works very slowly, applying one layer of pigment after another. Each work takes about a month to complete.
It is in the middle gallery, a dramatic, triple-height space that soars up to twin sky-lights, that we see his work to its best advantage. It is here that the moods of the works change by the hour as the light changes.
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As I walk from work to work, I wonder whether these are paintings or sculptures — or something between the two. They are, at first glance, paintings, in so far as they seem to hang against and even hug, the wall, but as soon as we begin to examine them a little more minutely we see that there are some elements of almost visual trickery here.
Take the edges of these rectilinear panels, for example. Some are bevelled, and even over-painted with narrowing arrows of pure gold.
Quite often the panels don’t hang flush to the wall. One thrusts out at the bottom, so that it appears to be slightly tilted up towards the skylight, as if it is thirsting to sip at the blue light.
Later I discuss some of these matters with Spalletti himself. He is not an over- eager interviewee. Perhaps it is the business of the works to say it all. The weather is one subject that truly animates him — this strange Leeds light in which you have sun one moment, cloud the next. That never happens in Italy. “Here the moments of sunlight are so precious,” he says. “In Milan, my work seems to be covered in smog.”
And, yes, I discern that there is no real difference between sculpture and painting for him. “I use oil and pigment to paint flat surfaces and deep surfaces, so my works are half-way between.”
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We talk about the past, of how he identifies the Italian landscape with particular painters. When he goes to Tuscany — his father was a Tuscan farmer — he thinks of Leonardo and Giotto. He also talks about his love of Raphael, for “the way he could deliver a message. In those times, most paintings were commissioned by the church, they were icons. What I so much admire is not just how it was made, but the way he gave the painting a symbolic meaning”.
And what is Spalletti himself trying to do as an artist? “I am trying to make history contemporary.”
I ask about his working habits. Does he work on several pieces simultaneously? God forbid. ‘“Even though the works may look similar, they are actually quite different from each other. And anyway, I don’t want to put that much pressure on myself.”