Category: Issue #49

With generous permission
from the filmmaker’s estate,
we are honored to share
this extraordinary short
documentary, completed in
2017 by Joseph De
Francesco with Michael
O’Connell. Framed as an
intimate interview with
Marioni, it also contains the
only known footage of him
painting.

In speech and in practice, the term “liquid light” binds together the material and the immaterial; indeed, this binding is at the core of all painting. And it is the dialectical acknowledgment performed by the notion of liquid light that, finally, gives Marioni pride of place at this epochal moment in the history of his art form.

From 1972 until his death on September 6, 2024, Joseph Marioni occupied a studio loft at 545 8th Avenue. These photographs were made during a single visit in late December of that year.