THE DISCIPLINE OF THE ESSENTIAL: Paolo Cotani, Elio Marchegiani, Carmengloria Morales, Gianfranco Zappettini
  • the discipline of the essential ON VIEW AT Primo Marella Gallery Lugano Primo Marella Gallery Lugano is pleased to present...

    the discipline of the essential

    ON VIEW AT

    Primo Marella Gallery Lugano

     
    Primo Marella Gallery Lugano is pleased to present the new group exhibition The Discipline of the Essential, featuring the works of Elio Marchegiani, Carmengloria Morales, Gianfranco Zappettini and Paolo Cotani.
  • Analytical Painting, born under the sign of a non-movement, was represented by a group of distinct personalities, often in dialogue – or even in contrast – with one another. For these artists, painting was less an end in itself than a means to rediscover artistic language and to reaffirm, through gesture and process, the value of the artwork as both object and action.
    During the 1970s, the various research paths undertaken by these artists gave rise to a heterogeneous phenomenon – yet one that remained coherent in its shared intention: to go beyond the notion of art as purely subjective or emotional expression. Paradoxically, it is precisely this lack of formal cohesion that makes Analytical Painting so relevant today. None of the artists ever claimed to represent a common aesthetic; each developed a personal reflection through the concrete experience of painting. The artwork thus becomes a work in progress, shedding its traditional aura to become a conscious practice.
  • From a theoretical perspective, there are clear affinities with Minimalism, understood as a return to the essential and to the...
    Paolo Cotani, Bende, 1976, Acrilico e bende elastiche, 100 × 100 cm
    From a theoretical perspective, there are clear affinities with Minimalism, understood as a return to the essential and to the primary structure of the artwork. It is precisely in this direction that The Discipline of the Essential positions itself – a title that aptly captures the core of Analytic Painting: a rigorous discipline focused on uncovering the fundamental principles of painting as a practice. The exhibition seeks to highlight how, through reduction and a focus on gesture, material, and process, a new form of essentiality emerges – not as a form of deprivation, but as an affirmation of meaning. From Zappettini’s layered canvases to Morales’ diptychs, and Cotani’s and Marchegiani’s investigations of materiality and physical presence, the movement reveals a focus on the intimate relationship between matter and color. Recurring elements – elastic bands, chromatic variations, layering, and diptychs – express a shared desire to rediscover painting in its purest, most untainted, almost primordial form. Rather than a “return to order,” it is a conscious return to painting’s essential and fundamental principles, in stark opposition to the aesthetics of impulsive gesture.
     
    In the uncertain and fragmented historical context of the 1970s, Analytical Painting was anything but cold or impersonal. To this today, its works reveal an aesthetic force that far exceeds mere historical documentation.
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  • In 1975, Paolo Cotani inaugurated one of the most emblematic cycles of his artistic career: the Bende (“Bandages'). Though radical...
    Paolo Cotani, Tensioni, 2007, Cinghie e acciaio, 257 × 75 x 15 cm
    In 1975, Paolo Cotani inaugurated one of the most emblematic cycles of his artistic career: the Bende (“Bandages"). Though radical in their outcomes, these works never abandoned a reflection on painting – instead, they offered a wholly new vision of it.
    Through a constructive process, the bandages become integral to the stretcher itself, transforming from mere material into a structural component of the work, in constant dialogue with the painted surface. Cotani’s bandages – clearly intended as a statement on painting through accumulation, quantity, and thickness – open up a space for a new, three-dimensional perspective. After exploring various avenues throughout his career, Cotani returned to extra-pictorial materials, and his work began to acquire a tangible, physical presence that engaged directly with architecture – as seen in his Tensioni and Torsioni series, where his research moved towards a form of radical essentiality.
     
    In these works, Cotani achieved a visual synthesis that departed from his earlier conceptual experiments. His aim was to open up new possibilities of perception through wall-mounted three-dimensional objects that invite the viewer’s active participation – calling on them to interpret both form and meaning.
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  • A compelling example of how Analytical Painting is grounded in a conscious return to traditional tools – beyond any attempt...
    Carmengloria Morales, Dittico R 73-5-2, 1973, Grafite e tela, 150 × 65 cm
    A compelling example of how Analytical Painting is grounded in a conscious return to traditional tools – beyond any attempt at classification – is found in the work of Carmengloria Morales, especially in her Diptychs.
     
    Beginning in 1969, Morales made a decisive formal choice: to place two identical elements side by side as the field for pictorial intervention. Two surfaces – identical in shape, thickness, and size – are arranged adjacent to one another, separated by a narrow gap. While both surfaces were initially worked upon, already by the following year Morales began concentrating her painting on only one of the two. It is within this tension – between the painted and the untouched, the full and the empty – that a profound meditation on the pictorial gesture emerges.
     
    These works present themselves directly and unambiguously: with no conceptual allusions, no minimalist suggestions, and no representational intent. The white canvas, far from being neutral, imposes a further rigor, pushing the artist toward an essential and absolute language. For this reason, Morales often reworks the same painted portion multiple times, layering materials such as acrylic, graphite, charcoal, and occasionally wax – until an idea of painting as a pure and conscious act emerges, deeply rooted in the physical act of making and in the tension between presence and absence.
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  • Over the course of more than four decades, Gianfranco Zappettini has played a key role in renewing the language of...
    Gianfranco Zappettini, Grafite 2b su tele sovrapposte n.156, 1975, Grafite su tela, 130 × 130 cm
    Over the course of more than four decades, Gianfranco Zappettini has played a key role in renewing the language of painting. For him, the surface of the painting regains its original function: an “opaque” space that does not represent external realities or inner dimensions, but refers solely to itself – its own structure and essence.
     
    His research focuses on creating spatial relationships – always within the two-dimensional plane – between a “field” and the lines that traverse it. Orthogonal and diagonal grids overlap and conceal one another, spreading across surfaces that, while confined to the limits of the canvas, seem to expand through the visual rhythm of the composition. This is evident in his white monochromes, where overlapping canvases are traversed only by a subtle graphite line. Within this controlled, rigorous context, Zappettini develops variations of forms and elements that combine and disassemble in sequences that are almost indecipherable, yet manage to captivate the viewer’s gaze.
     
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  • In recent years, while remaining faithful to his methodology, Zappettini has introduced new elements into his work: he has become increasingly drawn to geometric structures and has even reintroduced color – an element he had deliberately avoided in the 1970s. These shifts, though diverse, orbit around a core idea that defines his practice: the idea of painting as a tool for inner knowledge and for exploring the nature of reality.
  • Since the late 1950s, Elio Marchegiani has developed a multifaceted artistic path, in which painting becomes the privileged terrain for constant experimentation – between a deeply reflective gesture and an acute sensitivity to the external context in which the work takes shape. For Marchegiani, art is never self-referential, but rather a concrete operation that interrogates and deconstructs the very mechanisms of the art system.
    Between the 1960s and 1990s, Marchegiani stood out for his radical and nonconformist approach, in which painting was subjected to continuous questioning. His most recognizable hallmark – the Colore grammopeso (“gram-weight color”) – is more than just a stylistic signature: it is a way of probing the physical value of color, its real and material weight, in stark contrast to its traditional lightness and immateriality. Marchegiani has consistently shown an ability to subvert the rules of his own practice, never settling into predefined formulas, always in search of a personal path that led him to work with unconventional materials and unusual techniques, while maintaining a strong poetic coherence.
     
    It is precisely within this tension – between rigor and invention, between lightness and depth – that the strength of Elio Marchegiani’s work lies: an art that does not simply represent, but one that thinks and rethinks itself, inviting the viewer to do the same.
  • Elio Marchegiani, Clausura, 1963, Tecnica mista, 73 × 73 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Elio Marchegiani, Plexiglass (triangolo), 1964, Tecnica mista, 60 × 60 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Elio Marchegiani, Gomma, 1970, Tecnica mista, 52,5 × 52,5 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Elio Marchegiani, Clessidra con punto luce, 1991, Tecnica mista, 70 × 50 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Elio Marchegiani, Clausura, 1963, Tecnica mista, 73 × 73 cm
  • Works
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