Gianfranco Zappettini, CON-CENTRO n 80, 2018, Resine,acrilico e fassadenputz su tavola, 100 × 100 cm
Primo Marella Gallery Lugano is pleased to present:
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE ESSENTIAL.
PAOLO COTANI, ELIO MARCHEGIANI, CARMENGLORIA MORALES, GIANFRANCO ZAPPETTINI
Group exhibition with Paolo Cotani, Elio Marchegiani, Carmengloria Morales, Gianfranco Zappettini.
On view from October 14th to November 21st 2025 at Primo Marella Gallery Lugano.
About the exhibition:
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.
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.
October 14, 2025
