Lot 16 D

The artist's caution is of the most ethical importance as it serves to balance the whole structure. Marioni's cautious and respectful involvement with the picture, acknowledging the essence of the object without being imposing, exemplarily represents the sophisticated handling of the objects that surround us. The picture becomes a discriminating counterpart asserting its position, its own presence here and now. Despite all immediacy of colour perception, it keeps its distance at all times so that emotional convergence and restrained aloofness balance each other. Considering this tension between empathy and self-control, which is exacted from the artist as well as from the observer, it is only natural that Marioni emphasises several times in an interview that his painting is greatly concerned with intimacy - an intimacy which is highly complex, however. (Hannelore Kersting, Über die Radikalität von Joseph Marioni- Ein Nachwort, in: Städtisches Museum Abteiberg (ed.), Joseph Marioni. Malerei, Mönchengladbach 1988, p. 47.)