Versus. Massimiliano Pelletti

Classical and contemporary art meet at Palazzo Massimo, one of the four venues of the Museo Nazionale Romano - National Roman Museum. In the site-specific operation carried out in collaboration with the Barbara Paci Gallery, which curated its conception and organization together with the artist, unpublished works created by Tuscan sculptor Massimiliano Pelletti dialogue with the museum’s permanent collection of ancient sculpture and invite visitors to reflect on human nature and our time.

Born in 1975 in Pietrasanta, near Lucca, where he still lives and works, Massimiliano Pelletti is one of the most interesting sculptors on the Italian contemporary scene and is widely appreciated abroad. In his works, present in important public and private collections, the dialogue between different eras and the reflection on the classical model as an archetype have always emerged as recurring themes.

For the exhibition at Palazzo Massimo, the sculptor has selected a number of ancient masterpieces such as the Crouching Aphrodite, the Lancellotti Discobolus, the Ludovisi-type Hermes, the Head of Athena, the Head of Heracles, and the Head of Sappho, recovering their classical models and re-proposing them with unusual and rare natural materials used for the first time in sculpture. The new sculpture series offers the viewer a counterbalance, a contemplative mirror dimension capable of stimulating a potential alternative narrative.