Massimiliano Pelletti ‘You can’t break a rule you have never learnt’

Massimiliano Pelletti is a renowned Italian sculptor whose works can be found in collections and exhibitions around the world. Blending tradition with a contemporary sensibility, he works with marble and an extraordinary variety of stones, creating sculptures that captivate with their craftsmanship, depth, and layers of meaning. We spoke with Pelletti about his journey to becoming an acclaimed and highly accomplished artist, his perspective on the key challenges in the contemporary art world, the turning points that shaped his professional path, and much more.

Massimiliano Pelletti Photo by Nicola Gnesi

Victoria Stepanets: Dear Pelletti, it’s a great pleasure to have this conversation with you. Your work makes an impression at first glance – it is a fascinating combination of tradition and modernity, conveying a sense of transformation and fluidity through the use of marble, quartz, onyx, limestone, and combinations of other natural stones. Have you always worked primarily with these materials, and what draws you to these materials in particular?

Massimiliano Pelletti: Thank you, Victoria. In a sense, I grew up with this question even before I knew how to put it into words. I learnt to work with stone as a child, in the family workshop in Pietrasanta, watching my grandfather Mario carve marble with the same discipline that classical tradition had handed down to him. Marble, therefore, was never a choice: it is a legacy. What came later, and what I would truly call ‘my own’, is the decision not to limit myself to marble, but to seek out stones not typically used in sculpture: onyx, quartz, sodalite, volcanic rock, agate, calcite formations. I choose these materials because their internal structures already contain a history — millions of years of pressure, of slow crystallisation, of fracturing. When I bring that history into contact with a classical form, the sculpture ceases to be an object and becomes a sort of dialogue between two timescales: the very brief one of the human hand, and that of the earth.

 ‘Aurora’, pink onyx, by Massimiliano PellettiPhoto by Nicola Gnesi

VS: Today, the art world is highly competitive, and in order to truly stand out, an artist needs to develop a distinctive style of their own. Your work is highly recognizable and has a unique identity. How did you develop your signature style, and do you also work in styles that are very different from the work you are known for?

MP: My style did not arise from a quest for originality, but from a tension that I could not otherwise resolve. On the one hand, I had a training rooted in the classical canon; on the other, the instinct to let the material retain its ownvoice. The style you recognise today, a classical figure interrupted by a rough-hewn crystal, a geode, an unpolished fracture, is the visible result of my refusal to choose between these two forces. As for working in a different way: yes, I have occasionally worked in bronze, and I undertake public and monumental commissions — a five-metre-tall marble sculpture for an urban project in Acapulco, for example — which require a different approach to a smaller piece. But even there, the same principle applies: the human hand stops at the point where the material’s own story becomes more eloquent than anything I might impose upon it.

‘Dawn’, Mexican white onyx, by Massimiliano PellettiPhoto by Nicola Gnesi

VS: In addition to your art education, you also studied philosophy. And indeed, your works can be “read” like multi-volume philosophical books, filled with countless layers of meaning. Do you always explain the meaning behind your sculptures, or do you prefer to let viewers form their own interpretations?

MP: I prefer never to explain my sculptures in full. I offer a starting point for thought, sometimes a reference, but it is up to the viewer to complete the work through their own interpretation and perception. If I were to close off that space with an explanation, I would deprive the work of the one thing it truly asks the viewer to do.

VS: How important do you think academic education is for artists nowadays?

MP: I would distinguish between two things that are often conflated under the term ‘academic’: technical training and an institutional qualification. The former, for me, is non-negotiable — one cannot break a rule that one has never learnt, and my entire practice depends on knowing the classical canon well enough to break it with precision, not by chance. I received that training partly from my grandfather and partly through my studies. The second aspect — a degree, a prestigious school — counts, in my view, for less than the discipline of observing, studying and practising for years before anyone calls that path ‘a style’. I would say to a young artist today: train your hands and your eye, wherever that may be, and do not be in a hurry about the years it takes. 

‘Petrified Forest’, Persian onyx, by Massimiliano PellettiPhoto by Nicola Gnesi

VS: Was there a defining moment in your career that marked a breakthrough and brought greater recognition? If so, what was it?

MP: There have been two, at very different times. The first was in 2006, when I won the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean – my real debut – which paved the way for international group exhibitions and, subsequently, the presentation of a work in the Italian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. I realised then that my work could reach beyond Pietrasanta. The second, much more recent, was my solo exhibition at Palazzo Massimo, one of the venues of the National Roman Museum, in 2024–2025, where I was invited by the then director to engage directly with the museum’s ancient collection. Being the first contemporary artist invited into those halls of ancient sculpture was a real milestone: my work was no longer merely evoking antiquity from the outside, but was entering into it.

VS: You live in Italy, but your work is exhibited all over the world. In which countries do you see the greatest demand for your sculptures?

MP: Italy remains at the heart of my work, but the greatest interest from collectors at the moment comes from other European countries, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Middle East. 

‘Ercole’, pink Portugal marble, by Massimiliano PellettiPhoto by Nicola Gnesi

VS: What is the most expensive work you have ever sold?

MP: I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you a little here — most of my sales go through galleries on a ‘price on enquiry’ basis, and I’ve always preferred to keep the specific figures private, out of respect for the collectors as well as for the market itself. What I can say is that the most valuable works tend to be the largest and most technically demanding ones — monumental commissions or large-scale site-specific installations created for museum contexts — rather than gallery-scale sculptures. For me, value has always been easier to measure in months of work than in figures.

VS: Do you personally collect art? If so, what kind of art do you have in your collection?

MP: Yes, I enjoy buying art, but that’s not all. I surround myself with anything that might inspire my work: from African art – which I have, in fact, incorporated into some of my sculptures – to unusual and sometimes curious objects; in this context, I’m reminded of a small wooden boat that belonged to the famous composer Giacomo Puccini, which he used to cross Lake Massaciuccoli (a lake near where I was born and where I live); it hangs in my studio and I’ve reproduced it in onyx to create one of my own works. Over the years, I have also built up a personal plaster cast collection — a collection of over two hundred antique plaster casts: busts, hands, drapery, and anatomical fragments taken from classical and neoclassical models, some of which come from historic workshops here in Pietrasanta. It began as a legacy from my grandfather and, over the years, has become as much a working tool as a collection. I do not regard it as mere decoration; I view it as one might view an alphabet – it is there that I go to seek out the proportions and geometries that I then reinterpret in my sculptures.

'Silver Eros’, silver travertine, by Massimiliano PellettiPhoto by Nicola Gnesi

VS: How would you describe the contemporary art world today? What are the main challenges you see that we should all be paying attention to?

MP: I see a world caught between two forces. On the one hand, speed — art fairs, market cycles, the expectation that an artist will quickly produce a recognisable ‘product’ and repeat it. On the other, a genuine hunger — which I constantly encounter in viewers — for something slow, tactile, and honest about its own making — and this is also why hand-carved sculpture continues to strike a chord with people. The challenge I would point to, however, goes beyond the art world: we live in a culture that treats resilience as a slogan and perfection as a daily obligation — surfaces that are flawless, smooth and crack-free, both in bodies and in life stories. I believe that today the task of art is almost the opposite: to show that what is fragile by nature, and not by accident, is not a flaw to be hidden but the very structure of all that is real. If contemporary art loses the courage to reveal its own fractures, it loses its purpose. 

VS: What work or art project are you currently working on?

MP: I have recently completed a major work that is very dear to me, and which I hope to be able to present to the public as soon as possible. My future projects also include taking part in TEFAF Maastricht and organising a solo exhibition at a major US museum, the details of which I cannot yet disclose.