"Yes, the color, as it moves, occupies the space and we enter. There is no longer the frame that delimited the space. By removing it, the color assumes the space and invades the space. And when this thing succeeds, it is miraculous"Ettore Spalletti, one of the most illustrious names in contemporary art, passed away on November 16, 2019, at the age of 79 in his home in Spoltore (Pescara).Master of light and color, capable of breaking the boundary between painting and sculpture, Spalletti became famous all over the world for his research aimed at exploring the chromatic universe, through a manual and metaphysical approach at the same time.Despite his international success, he has never severed the link with his land, that Abruzzo coast whose Mediterranean shades populate his works.Born in 1940 in Cappelle sul Tavo, in the province of Pescara, Ettore Spalletti began to get noticed in the seventies, when minimal structures take shape under his fingers, mainly in wood and marble, which come to life through color, interacting with the space in which they are placed.These first creations are simple only in appearance: behind the essential geometries and the monochromatic choices, overlapping layers of paint are perceived, lumps of rough material that becomes light, solid and kinetic poetry, with a great emotional impact.The technique, which Spalletti will perfect throughout his career, is a perfect encounter between sculpture and painting: first the surface is shaped and defined, and then the different pigments are applied to it.The colors that recur in Spalletti's work range from the blue stolen from the sea of ​​his childhood, to the yellow of the sun, to the pink of the skin.He rarely deviates from these symbolic colors, vibrant with life, anchored to reality and the artist's memory.His favorite color, however, is gray, which seems to carry the perfect synthesis: halfway between black and white, neutral without being banal, it goes well with any other chromatic note, it is "the color of hospitality".The sculptural nature of Ettore Spalletti's works does not pass only through a material use of color, but is also embodied in the symbiotic relationship with space.His paintings overflow from the frame, mock formal conventions, renounce their integrity to seek total interpenetration with the exhibition context.On the other hand, even in the abstractionism that dominates his works, clear sculptural archetypes can be traced, such as the vase, the column, the cup.In this synthesis of languages, which makes art intrinsically "physical", three-dimensional, tactile, the spectator can only be called into question, who completes it with his gaze and his experience.An example of this are the rooms of the Garches morgue, renovated by the artist in 1996, in what represents one of his most significant works: here the dominant color is blue, which envelops and softens the space, but also gives it a sort of mystical and sacred aura.The same transcendent suggestions characterize the Chapel of the Villa Serena clinic in Città Sant'Angelo, a small church that Spalletti has refurbished together with his wife, the architect Patrizia Leonelli.And it is no coincidence that for Spalletti the entire space is a work of art, in which colors and shapes, full and empty, lights and shadows cooperate to shape an immersive spiritual experience.Spalletti's works have quickly gained a prestigious place on the international audience, from the early 1980s to the present day.Among the most important events that saw him as a protagonist we remember the Venice Biennale (in the 1982, 1993, 1995, 1997 editions) and the countless personal exhibitions, in Paris (Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1991), New York (Osmosis, SR Guggenheim Museum, 1993, with Haim Steinbach), Antwerp (Museum van Hedendaages Kunst, 1995), Strasbourg (Salle des fêtes, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, 1998-99), Naples (National Museum of Capodimonte , 1999), Leeds (Henry Moore Foundation, 2005).Five years ago the most complete retrospective of Spalletti's work was staged, entitled "A day so white, so white", which exceptionally involved three Italian museums in unison, the MAXXI in Rome, the GAM gallery of Turin and the Mother Museum of Naples.Each venue emphasized a different aspect of Spalletti's vast production, exhibiting around 70 works in total.Particularly noteworthy is the installation proposed at MAXXI: a white cube dense with light, in which one could enter (maximum four people at a time), letting oneself be enveloped by the dazzling whiteness of the walls and the paintings placed on them, just apart. in order to highlight the golden profiles.For those who want to say goodbye to the master from Abruzzo, it is worth making a trip to Villa Paloma, in the Principality of Monaco, where until next November you can admire a large exhibition dedicated to Spalletti, entitled Ombre d'azur, transparence.Twenty-nine works, many made ad hoc, transfigure the space that surrounds them, suggesting soft echoes and secret correspondences in a balance that touches the deepest emotional chords.A privileged point of view on Ettore Spalletti's poetics and life is also that offered by Alessandra Galletta in the documentary Ettore Spalletti, Italy, a film by LaGalla23, due out in November: a dive into the rarefied and conceptual world of the artist, but also an honest and private portrait of man, always poised between matter and spirit.