The Menhir Arte Contemporanea Gallery, on the occasion of the new edition of the Miart 2021 fair, is pleased to present a monographic booth focused on the figure of the artist Ettore Colla. The works on display, published in the general catalogue (De Marchis – Pinto, ETTORE COLLA, Monografia, Ed. Bulzoni), retrace the stylistic evolution of Colla’s artistic practice from the 1940s to the early 1960s.

In 1939 the artist obtained the chair of sculpture at the art high school in Rome, presenting the plaster bas-relief Minotauro chitarrista. The production of these years, mainly in plaster and terracotta and largely dispersed, adopts new neocubist-inspired forms and reveals a general attention to the contemporary experiences of European avant-garde sculpture. The outbreak of the war offered Colla, as it did for many Italian artists, elements of existential reflection that would be elaborated in his later production. The artist began to reuse industrial materials, collecting iron scrap and remnants of machinery.

In the early 1950s, Colla developed new abstract-geometric sculptural elaborations, returning to sculpture and producing works made of iron sheet metal. From this experimentation, between late 1954 and early 1955, the artist moved toward a production far removed from geometric themes and oriented toward assemblage.

Following a process that would remain constant in his later production, after selecting the pieces, the artist assembled them, guided by the creative image the object suggested to him. His works from these years are the most important and well-known of his entire production. From 1957, Colla devoted himself—with growing interest until 1961—to creating works intended for wall installation, made with a background surface of reclaimed sheet metal onto which discarded iron objects were welded. After 1961, however, a search for pure forms became more clearly defined, through the recovery of elements that reveal a geometric matrix.

The selection of Colla’s works presented by Menhir Gallery for Miart 2021 aims to highlight a key period in Art History, through the analysis of emblematic works by a great master such as Ettore Colla.