Enzo Cacciola
Enzo Cacciola
10 July 2026 at 8 PM
Exhibition duration: 10 July 2026 – 19 August 2026 Gallery opening hours: 10:00–12:00 and 18:00–22:00, except Sundays and public holidays
Free Admission
Enzo Cacciola (Arenzano, Italy, 1945.), whose exhibition has been realised in collaboration with the Marinko Sudac Foundation and the Institute for Research of the Avant-Garde from Zagreb, belongs to the generation of artists who, in the 1970s, began to examine painting through its fundamental elements. The focus of his work shifted to the support, surface, material, process, the trace of execution and the time of creation. This approach defined European analytical painting (pittura analitica), a movement that regarded the painting as a space for investigating its own conditions.
Within this context, Cacciola distinguished himself at an early stage through his work with materials drawn from industry and construction. Cement and selected pigments in his works did not serve an aesthetic effect, but rather determined the very structure of the painting. With these investigations he participated, among other occasions, in the 1975 exhibition Analytische Malerei in Düsseldorf, one of the key European exhibitions of analytical painting, and in 1977 he was invited to documenta 6 in Kassel.
In certain cycles he also uses natural materials found in specific geographical locations — such as sand, mud, volcanic earth or local minerals — thereby connecting the analytical approach to the place of the work's creation. Cacciola's work is also significant because, across different materials, it maintains the same investigative principle. From cement and asbestos to multigum, denim, pigments, sand, earth and mineral materials, the painting in his practice develops as the result of a process, a decision and the physical behaviour of the material.
The exhibition in Poreč introduces to the Croatian public an artist essential for understanding Italian art after Arte Povera, Minimalism and Conceptual Art. His work belongs to that strand of post-war European art which regarded painting through material, process and the physical presence of the work, and belongs in particular to the movement of analytical art.
The Marinko Sudac Foundation is dedicated to the preservation, research and promotion of avant-garde art, with a particular emphasis on the artistic practices of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It continues the activity founded on the Marinko Sudac Collection, one of the most significant collections of avant-garde and neo-avant-garde art in the region, and supports its protection, scholarly processing and international presentation.
The Institute for Research of the Avant-Garde was founded in 2010 with the aim of studying, documenting and popularising historical avant-garde movements. The Institute organises exhibitions, scientific projects, conferences and publishing activities, and collaborates with numerous museums, universities and cultural institutions in Croatia and abroad.
This exhibition has been realised in collaboration with the Marinko Sudac Foundation and the Institute for Research of the Avant-Garde, under the patronage of the City of Poreč, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the Istrian County, the Tourist Board of the City of Poreč, Valamar, and the Rossi winery.