Marioni is associated with Radical Painting, a movement that approached painting not as image, composition, or representation, but as a material and perceptual event.

His seemingly monochrome canvases are built from translucent layers of paint, allowing colour to emerge through depth, density, and the interaction of light with the painted surface. The edge of the canvas, the flow of pigment, and the physical presence of colour become central elements of the work.

The Secession catalogue offers an important overview of this period in Marioni’s practice. With colour illustrations, an exhibition checklist, and texts in German and English, it situates his work within a discourse of painting after minimalism, while emphasizing the sensuous and optical qualities that distinguish his approach.

Joseph Marioni: Paintings 1977–1994 was published by the Wiener Secession in 1996 on the occasion of Marioni’s exhibition in Vienna. The catalogue presents a focused survey of paintings from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s and documents the artist’s sustained investigation of monochrome painting, colour, surface, and light.