Massimiliano Pelletti: Metamorfosi – Myths Reborn in Stone
Bowman Sculpture reopens its doors this autumn with Metamorfosi, the second UK solo show by Italian sculptor Massimiliano Pelletti – and the first to be staged in the gallery’s newly transformed Mayfair space.
Opening just ahead of Frieze Week, the exhibition runs from 9 October to 7 November, marking a renewed commitment to contemporary voices under director Mica Bowman.
Known for merging classical forms with fractured materials, Pelletti brings a body of work that feels both rooted in antiquity and entirely contemporary. His sculptures – often masked, broken, or eroded – reinterpret Greco-Roman gods and human anatomy through onyx, marble and fossil-laced stone, honouring not perfection but its opposite.
At the centre of the show is African Ares, a pink onyx warrior god that fuses Roman iconography with African sculptural forms. Another standout, Viscere, presents a female torso whose smooth, classical exterior splits open to reveal a crystalline core. These are works that seem to remember the body differently – not as static or ideal, but as a site of tension, transformation and mythic rebirth.
Photos by Richard Young
Pelletti, who lives and works in Pietrasanta, Italy, comes from a long line of stone carvers. His grandfather famously restored Michelangelo’s Pietà at the Vatican, and the legacy of craft and disruption courses through this new series. “Each material is selected for its own characteristics,” the artist says. “In this way, the material becomes a co-author of the work.”
Metamorfosi follows a successful debut at Bowman Sculpture in 2023 and recent institutional recognition in Italy, including a landmark solo exhibition at Rome’s Palazzo Massimo – where Pelletti became the first living artist invited to show within the museum’s collection of ancient sculpture. His works were placed in direct dialogue with classical icons such as the Discobolus and Crouching Venus.
For Bowman Sculpture, this exhibition also marks a step-change. The renovated space reflects a curatorial evolution set in motion by Mica Bowman since her appointment in 2018 – one that expands the gallery’s focus from historical masters like Rodin to sculptors exploring the possibilities of tradition itself. Metamorfosi is both a continuation of that ethos and a clear statement of intent.
Pelletti’s mythic forms do not dwell in the past. They emerge from it, broken and reassembled, ready to speak again.
Massimiliano Pelletti: Metamorfosi runs from 9 October to 7 November 2025 at Bowman Sculpture, 6 Duke Street, St James’s, London.
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
